


Round Here

by taeyang91



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Lots of denial, M/M, and YES OKAY IM WRITING JOHNTEN BECAUSE I AM GARBAGE WHATEVER, i dont know what this is, johnny is a good guy tm, johnny thinks ten is terrifying, johnnys pov, lots of changing ur mind about whether u like or hate or feel bad for a character, lots of inner monologue, more characters will be added later, ten is a bad boy tm, ten thinks johnny is bored
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2018-12-24 03:11:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 37,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12003771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taeyang91/pseuds/taeyang91
Summary: Johnny just graduated and he decides to become a language tutor so he can jump start what he expects to be a perfectly adequate and acceptable Rest Of His Life.Ten says that he just needs a translator because its harder to get out of criminal charges if you can't speak the language.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [my own ass](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=my+own+ass), [bye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bye/gifts).



> they call me unnecessary details jimmy cause i over explain irrelevant shit  
> they also call me inconsistent characterization michael cause i do that

  Johnny never really expected to go anywhere in particular in his life. He had never really excelled at anything at school, but had gotten good enough grades, just above average, and graduated on time with just enough credits to pull through. He had a few good friends, but he could feel the minute they all went off to college they would never speak again. He had even had a few girlfriends during high school but nothing had ever lasted. But that was okay. He was happy and healthy, and it's not like he expected anything better anyways, right? He had just graduated a few months before and was going to take a year off to rest and recover, maybe even travel, something stereotypical and ordinary, maybe he would even backpack across Europe, maybe he would Eat Pray Love his way across the world, all before heading to a perfectly ordinary college, taking some courses guaranteed to make him some money, get a good enough job, marry, have kids, retire and move to some tropical island somewhere. But first, he needed to make some money.   
  


  "I can't believe you've never had a job," Doyoung stated, reaching over to switch the station when the opening notes of an overplayed western pop song started to play, "How did you manage to pay for your car and shit?" They were sitting in the aforementioned car now, Johnny had bought it the day he turned 16 from a used car lot and in those few short years it had been through hell and back. The vinyl of the seats was peeling and cracked, one of the back seat windows had been replaced by a piece of cardboard a few months into his ownership, but he loved it anyways, and refused to consider getting rid of it.    
  


  "Dad died when I was young, I had life insurance money, but now that's all gone," Johnny joked, not taking his eyes off the road in front of him,    
  


  "What? Really? Shit dude I'm sorry." Doyoung replied sympathetically, looking at the other boy nervously.    
  


  Johnny snorted, "I was kidding idiot," he didn't think about the fact one of his best friends didn't know whether or not his father was alive, which seems like it should be very entry level friendship or even aquintanceship knowledge. 

 "That's not funny," Doyoung groaned, throwing a half assed punch toward his friend, his fist colliding with Johnnys chest,  "I was about to offer to like, I don't know, offer you money or buy you something!"    
  
  Johnny burst out laughing, unbothered by the punch and gripping the steering wheel tight, "Why?" He asked, in light hearted exasperation.    
  


 "I don't know how to deal with emotions like that, whenever someone's sad around me I panic and buy them a plant or something," Doyoung shrugged, sounding embarrassed.

  "God you're weird," Johnny responded, giggling still. 

 "But besides you being an asshole, how DID you? You've always had money, and I swear to god if your family is millionaires I'm gonna pull this car over right now and drop you on the side of the highway because you've been skipping out on me," Doyoung laughed but he didn't sound like he was entirely joking, 

  "No, no, God, my parents are broke as hell, when I was a freshman I used to tutor Korean people for English and vice versa, being bilingual has its perks and I didn’t spend the money then so I kinda just ended up saving it for a while," Johnny explained, "But that’s gone now. Also I'm driving, if anything I'd kick you out of the car." 

 "Why don't you do that again?" Doyoung asked, ignoring the second comment, "Better than ending up at 7-11 like Taeyong and me," He never failed to bring up that he worked with Taeyong in at least every conversation.

  Johnny shrugged, "I guess I've never thought about that before." He sighed and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, "I don't know how I'd find people who’d even want to, it was easier when I was in America, now theres a million free resources online, unless someone is serious, why would they want to pay?" 

  "Put posters up at colleges and coffee shops, Westerners are coming here more than ever, and learning English is basically an expectation at this point," Doyoung responded, sounding a little bit too enthusiastic considering it was a situation that would not benefit him in the slightest, 

  "Yeah, yeah okay. You're right. I'll do that." Johnny hummed quietly, "Why not, right?" 

  And so he did, he turned left at the next intersection and went to print (Much to Doyoungs dismay, as they were on their way to get ice cream moments before.) dozens of posters at the public library that read as so:    
  
 LEARNING ENGLISH?    
 NEW TO KOREA?    
 CALL JOHN SEO, LANGUAGE TUTOR   


  In both English and Korean with his phone number underneath. He had to physically restrain Doyoung from adding "Bilingual genius" claiming he didn't think people would get the irony, Doyoung replied he didn't think it was ironic to begin with and that he shouldn’t think so little of himself. 

  "Simple and sweet," Johnny argued.

  "Boring and forgettable, you sound like you're 85," Doyoung retaliated, a bit too loudly, earning a loud “shush” from the librarian, “And why did you call yourself John? Thats weird, man,”    
  
  But in the end Johnny stuck with his instinct, and the 3 line poster was printed and hung around Seoul any place he could put it. He half expected no one to call, there were hundreds of probably much better English learning resources, there was hardly a reason for anyone to call him. But a few people did, mostly old people wanting to brush up on their already learned English who somehow during the course of the 3 minute call decided it wasn't worth it because they were likely already fluent, a few other people called thinking he was a good delivery place for whatever reason. As well as at least 2 prank phone calls from old classmates, asking if he’d trade English lessons for blowjobs and how to say “Eat my ass” in his so-called “American speak” one of which he swore was Taeyong, who denied it completely when he mentioned it the next day.   
  
 3 days later he got his first real call just as he was stepping out of the showed, it was from a nice sounding lady whos English was too calculated and formal to be her native language and who spoke with an accent Johnny couldn’t quite identify but assumed was somewhere in south east Asia. She explained her and her son who was just a bit younger than Johnny had just moved to Korea and that he didn’t speak much more than simple introductions and how to ask for directions and that he didn’t seem to want to learn more, but she figured he might as well, and so they arranged to meet for a consult the next day at their house about a 15 minute drive from Johnnys.  

  Johnny was nervous and excited and honestly didn’t know why he never thought of this before. Maybe this could be his career, maybe he’d never have to get a real job, maybe he could just tell westerners how to tell their biases they love them for hundreds of dollars a month. He mentally blessed Doyoungs existence for the 15th time that day as he pulled on his pajama pants, briefly felt grossed out that he was thinking about Doyoung in any way while naked, washed his face, and went to bed. 

\--

 It was the next day now and Johnny was standing outside of his car, furiously trying to make google maps work on his ancient cellphone to no avail. He didn’t know this part of town as well as he thought when he confidently had said he didn’t need directions yesterday. All the houses looked the same here and it was making his head hurt. 

 He felt the back of his neck prick up as if he was being watched and raised his eyes up slowly to meet those of a boy he’d never seen before who was standing across the street carrying an armfull of empty bags, as Johnny watched he reached his arm up and pulled away the cigarette he’d been holding between his lips, flicking the tower of ash that was almost as long as the remaining tobacco. He had a youthful face with smooth looking skin and dark hair that framed his face in a quasi bowl cut. His dark green jacket had rips and burns in the fabric and almost came down to knees. He was also wearing black jean shorts that cut off mid thigh with small chunkily cut fraying pieces of demin hanging down his legs, like he’d hacked the rest of the legs off with rusty gardening shears. He looked cool. He looked like he’d walked right out of some edgy teen movie. 

 “Excuse me, can you help me? I’m trying to find a house around here,” Johnny called out, taking half a step forward. 

 “I don’t speak Korean well.” The boy responded, his words sounded forced and were definitely pulled from a phrase book. The mysterious sort of threatening atmosphere Johnny had felt before dissipated as soon as he spoke. He gave a half assed tight lipped smile that somehow sprung his features to life. 

 “Ah!” Johnny exclaimed, in English now, “You wouldn’t happen to be the bo--person I’m supposed to be tutoring, would you?” Even though he was younger than him, calling him boy felt somehow wrong. 

 The boy looked him up and down, studying him, and then replied critically, “John Seo?” 

 “Oh, uh, call me Johnny... everyone does,” Johnny never felt he suited the name John but he wanted to keep an air of professionalism, or whatever you would call it. 

 “Ten,” The boy replied quickly with an almost half smile, taking a long drag of his cigarette as he said it. 

 “...Eleven?” Johnny continued, unsure of what the boy was trying to tell him. 

 “No, dumbass, its my name,” Ten snorted. Johnny couldn’t tell if it was in good nature or not. 

 “Oh shit! Sorry,” Johnny backtracked quickly, he was not doing well already and he’d only been here for 4 minutes, “Thats a cool name! Where are you from? Your english is very good.” Ten spoke with less of an accent as the woman Johnny had spoken to on the phone and his English was less polished and more casual, but Johnny could tell it wasn’t completely native.

 “Are we paying you for this time too?” Ten asked, in a non subtle way to suggest they cut the small talk.

 “Oh. Uh. No. No, sorry,” Johnny responded. Johnny had never felt somehow taller and smaller than he did right now, he felt embarrassed of the plain blue collared shirt he was wearing. He looked like a child who got into his fathers wardrobe.

 Ten stubbed out his cigarette on the bottom of his combat boots, tossing into a nearby shrub and shrugged, making his jacket lift a bit around his legs, “Come inside, then,” He offered as he shifted the empty bags into the crooks of his elbows, and gestured with his head toward the house in front of them. 

 So they went inside. The house wasn’t that big but it felt way bigger on the inside, the decorations were very minimal and stylish and Johnny made a mental note to never have a session at his place because compared to this house his room looked like a curiosity shop, with random crap shoved into every nook and cranny. 

 Ten looked out of place here, he didn’t belong in this mailing catalog house with his burn holes and scuffed up boots. He didn’t seem to be as aware, and pulled off his jacket and shoes and tossed them toward the coat rack, missing entirely. He was smaller than Johnny expected under the layers of clothing. He looked like a deshelled hermit crab.  

 “Is your… uh… is your mum home?” Johnny asked, after waiting for a few moments for Ten to initiate conversation of any sort. 

 “No.” Ten responded evenly. He seemed like he’d almost forgotten Johnny was there.

 “Oh. Okay. Well. I guess we don’t need her, I just wanted to talk about my rates and availability and such things and ma--” Johnny started to say, cutting off when he noticed Ten was walking out of the room, “Um?” He asked, calling after the other boy. 

 “Do you want lemonade?” Ten asked, reappearing in the doorway holding a carton. 

 “Uh, no, I’m okay, thank you,” Johnny replied, smiling weakly.

 Ten shrugged, “Suit yourself,” He took a sip straight from the carton and fixed his attention back on Johnny for a second, before walking back into what Johnny supposed was the kitchen. 

 “So I’m able to do anytime between uh Monday and Thursday generally after about 3 or 4 pm, so really whenever works for you, I would want to see where you’re at with your, uh, Korean,” Johnny tried to explain, but Ten kept popping in and out of the kitchen, briefly glancing over at Johnny and placing some food item from the fridge in one of the many bags he’d brought, he didn’t seem to be interested in what he was saying at all, “Sorry, do you actually want to hire me or what? You don’t seem to really care,” 

  “No, no, I totally do,” Ten responded, pausing for a second in his pattern of footsteps to glance over at the front door. 

 “Okay, so what days work for you?” Johnny prompted, but before Ten had a chance to answer he heard the sound of a car door slam outside the house. 

 Tens head snapped up with a look of panic, “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck they shouldn’t be here already.” He picked up the bags and half tossed one to Johnny, “Take this, follow me, and hurry,” 

 “What?” Johnny asked almost dropping the bag, he stood awkwardly, holding it, “What are you--”

  “No questions,” Ten responded hushedly, tossing Johnny his sneakers from across the room. He had re-donned his jacket and had his boots hung around his neck with the laces tied together, “C’mon we gotta go,” 

 “What?” Johnny repeated, flabbergasted. There were voices outside now, and steps coming up the stairs.

“No questions!” Ted repeated right back, pulling open a window facing a large tree and tossing his bags of food and shoes out, he climbed through in a fluid motion and landed easily on the tree branch in front of him, “C’mon! Jesus Christ!” He gestured widely toward himself, “Can you just fucking come!” 

 Right then something in Johnnys mind clicked, they had just robbed someone. He had just followed this fucking random guy into a complete strangers house and they had just robbed them, “What the fuck.” He said out loud. 

 Ten made a loud frustrated noise and glared at Johnny, “I’m not going to get caught because of you,” He groaned, and shoved himself out of the tree, landing, Johnny guessed, nimbly and gently, because he seemed to be the exact kind of person who gets out of everything without the slightest scratch. Johnny was however, not that person. And now he stood, in the living room of a person who he’d just helped steal from, who was currently outside the door, putting their key into the lock, and who would be inside the house in about 8 and a half seconds. 

 What the fuck should he do. 

 But he didn’t have enough time to make a plan at this point, as the door was opening, and a middle aged couple appeared. They were chatting idly about what to eat for dinner before they noticed the tall man standing in front of their couch holding bags full of various meats and dried noodles. Before he had time to think he was next to them, smiling politely as he passed, heading straight for the open door, “Sorry. Have a good evening,” He said, with calmness he couldn’t explain, as his heart was pounding in his throat and his knees were shaking. They stared at him, shocked, unmoving, as he walked down the stairs and out the front gate. 

 He continued to walk calmly and orderly, as if it were the most casual thing in the world, until he was far enough away that he knew they couldn’t see him, and then he bolted, completely unsure of where he was going, or why, or why he didn’t just get into his car and drive away. But his feet didn’t stop moving until he was several blocks away, standing at the edge of a large field, probably used for some sport related events. He dropped the bag of stolen food on the ground and sat down, trying to calm his breathing from the combination of running and a panic attack.

 “Johnny?” A familiar voice asked, a figure appeared in front of him, casting a shadow across his face, “What were you doing?” It was Jaehyun, some kid he’d been in homeroom with last year but hadn’t seen in months.

“Competing in a marathon,” Johnny responded, sourly. He was not in the mood to talk to anyone right now, especially Jaehyun. 

 “What kind of marathon?” Jaehyun asked, “The kind where its just you in the streets of a suburb carrying a bag of pork belly? Because I think you’re winning. Or losing. I can’t tell.” He laughed awkwardly and sat down next to Johnny on the cement.

 “Yeah. That kind.” Johnny replied, putting his head down onto his knees and sighing. He needed to get out of this neighbourhood. He was a criminal now. Maybe they would report it. They saw his face they knew what he looked like. He was fucked. This was it. Goodbye college goodbye Europe goodbye wife and kids. 

 His phone vibrated in his pocket and somehow he knew. 

  
**Unknown number (7:34 pm)** **  
** **\-- Can I have my groceries back?**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 2 is comin soon  
> things will be more ......................coherent in the next chapter  
> this is gonna be a .........................................long fic and ihm


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanna say this is a filler chapter but idk rly what a filler chapter is and i dont think this is that but ........... u kno  
> also pretend that i know how to use the english language and grammar in even the slightest way because i do Not and i dont even read over to check for mistakes lmao

 If anyone asked Johnny would say that the reason he decided to meet up with Ten again was that he wanted to separate himself as far away from the crime as possible, and possession of stolen goods and/or disposal of evidence would make him look just that much more suspicious. But no one did ask, because no one knew, and so the truth remained that honestly Johnnys curiosity just got the better of him. He had a million and five questions that if he didn’t get the answers to he would lose his mind completely. 

 So he agreed to meet with Ten and after following the other boys list of cryptic and nearly impossible to follow directions, he found himself on the edge of a bridge in a neighbourhood he’d barely even heard about, about 10 minutes driving in the opposite direction from where they held the heist. (Johnny wasn’t sure if he could call it a heist, and wasn’t necessarily aware of what a heist entailed, but he felt cooler thinking of it that way.) 

He got out of his car and walked toward the center of the bridge, he was sure, at this point, that it was a set up. Ten had called the police and directed them to meet him there. He knew it. It was Tens house that they robbed and because Ten had slipped out without notice he could now blame the entire thing on Johnny. Johnny sighed deeply. The plastic handle of the bag of food was digging into his hand. Why had he brought it? Now there was evidence against him. Who the fuck steals food, anyways?

“Please tell me you kept that food in the fridge, if that porks gone bad I’ll cry,” A voice spoke up behind him. Ten slid into his line of vision smiling hugely, “And what did you say to them as you left? That was brilliant, so casual. You’re a natural.”    
  


Johnny frowned. He had kept it in the fridge, but he almost didn’t want to say so, almost wanted to pretend he’d let the food spoil and rot in his basement. Like he probably should have done. But maybe not. “Who were those people?” He asked, finally, avoiding both of Tens questions.

Ten leaned back, elbows resting on the rail of the bridge and hummed quietly, biting his tongue lightly in thought, “Well statistically I’d say Mr. and Mrs. Kim. Park maybe. Or Lee.” He shrugged nonchalantly.

“What?” Johnny deadpanned, confused. 

“Most of you guys are, right? I read somewhere that like 50% of Koreans are named Kim or Park or Lee. So it was very likely one of those 3 names.” Ten explained, smirking slightly, like this was a casual meeting between friends. 

 “Okay.” Johnny replied, half heartedly. So Ten hadn’t known the people at all. He wasn’t sure why he expected to get anywhere with his questions at this point, but continued anyways, “So why me?” 

“What do you mean why you? Why anyone?” Ten answered with a hint of smugness. 

“No, I mean, why did you call me to begin with? You seemed fine on your own.” Johnny said quietly. He hadn’t used this much English in one go in a very long time and was surprised at how well he was managing. 

“Ah.” Ten nodded, still smiling obnoxiously, “Well, you see, if we got caught you could’ve either translated for me, or helped me play the confused tourist act, either way, makes my life a whole lot easier.” 

Johnnys mind was racing, he wanted to go home and sleep for several months, “But… but what if I had been like a 78 year old God loving woman who had reported you instantly? Seems kinda risky,” He hated the way his pulse was racing, how he felt his knees shaking like they’d give way at the slightest movement.

“I saw you putting up the posters, you idiot,” Ten answered, like it was obvious, “Why did you think I was staring at you from across the street before you even knew who I was?”

Johnny paused. Unsure of what to make of that. Ten had chosen him personally for this, “So… again, why me?” 

Ten stopped smiling for the first time since arriving, he had a look of grave seriousness on his face that was almost funny as he looked back at Johnny, “Because you striked me as someone whos unbelievably bored with his incredibly average life. Thought you might want some adrenaline, a little fun before you die.” His tone of face didn’t match the serious expression on his face in the slightest, he spoke like he was on the verge of laughing, in a weird way. 

 Johnny was fed up. He was done with this stupid guessing game and the way Ten spoke like he knew him better than he knew himself. Which was impossible. And he wasn’t bored, anyways, so what did Ten know. But he didn’t say any of that, somehow he stayed calm and replied, “And your mother? Does she know what you were doing with me?”

Tens face lit up, “You believed me? Goodness gracious am I getting good.” He said, in the exact voice of the woman Johnny had spoken to on the phone. 

Johnny froze, stunned, “So you…” He felt an unfamiliar feeling bubbling inside of him. He’d never been a particularly angry person, always sort of gone with the flow, never particularly gotten in arguments or fights. He was terrible at confrontation, even his breakups had flowed smoothly, but now suddenly, it was like the anger that he’d stored up in his spinal fluid or whatever over the years of letting people walk all over him was coursing through his veins, “So you saw me, decided I looked bored, which apparently you could only fix by pretending to be your mother, lying to me to get me to come steal this fucking--” He held the bag out in front of him, “Bullshit, so now I’m a fucking criminal and you think its this huge big joke? Fuck. You.” In a surge of adrenaline, Johnny flung his arm back and launched the entire bag straight into the river below. Suddenly, any previous rage had left his system, replaced by exhaustion, sudden hunger and what-the-fuck-did-i-just-do feeling. He glanced at Ten, half expecting the boy to be furious, but he was smiling twice as big as he had been before, and had his arms outstretched in a sort of cheer. Once the ringing in Johnnys ears had died down, he realized Ten was hysterically laughing, he turned to Johnny, grinning, and asked,    
  


 “So Mondays and Thursdays work for you? Around 4 or 5?” 

 “Fuck you.” Johnny said again, turning on his heel and starting to walk back towards his car. His heart was pounding against his chest, his throat felt raw and rough even though he hadn’t even yelled that loud, he was exhausted, but he felt weirdly not terrible. He felt weirdly like everything in his life had been building up to this sort of feeling. But he’d never admit that, not even to himself, he couldn’t let Ten have been right. He couldn’t have let these past 2 days be the most interesting and memorable of his whole life. He had lots to live for, right? He didn’t need to resort to Tens stupid way of doing pointless robbery to get some sick rush because Johnny wasn’t miserable. Johnny was happy. Johnny was healthy. Johnny had friends who made him laugh, and just because those friends often wouldn’t talk to him for a few weeks, and just because those friends didn’t necessarily know that Johnnys father was alive did NOT mean… Johnny stopped and took a deep breath. He needed to stop thinking.

He climbed into the drivers seat of his car, stuck the key in the ignition and pulled it to a rumbling start. He did not look at the boy who stood on the edge of the sidewalk and watched him pull away. He did not think about that boy at all. He didn’t think about the bag of perfectly good and eatable food at the bottom of the river, either. He thought about what he was going to eat for dinner that night, all the way home. 

\--

Johnny woke up the next day to his phone vibrating from his pocket. He’d forgotten to plug it in last night. He groaned softly to himself and pulled it out from underneath him, looking at it through half closed eyes. It was Mark. He slid the accept button, with a loud groan that continued long enough for the phone to connect and for Mark to hear it, just so he knew that he had majorly inconvenienced him and that it was not acceptable to call at 9:34 am. 

“What?” Johnny spat, in English. This was mainly why he and Mark had become friends. They had a pretty significant age gap, but they were 2 of the only people at their school who had lived most of their lives in North America, so they bonded through that, much to the faux annoyance of Johnnys friends who pretended they hated having to deal with this infant. But really they all liked Mark as much as Johnny did. 

“What are you doing right now?” Mark asked in Korean, seemingly unbothered by the tone of Johnnys voice. One of Johnnys favourite things about their friendship was the ability to switch between languages or even to have entire ones with one speaking one and the other speaking the other. It annoyed everyone around them to pieces. 

“Sleeping, Mark, its early,” Johnny responded, rubbing his eyes without lifting his face off of the pillow. Mark was lucky, if it was anybody else he would’ve hung up as soon as he knew no one would be eaten by wolves if Johnny didn’t get out of bed this instant and come help fight. Specifically wolves, too, even if it was bears or wild dogs or even sharks, Johnny would’ve probably still hung up. 

“Well, stop sleeping and come to the park, you gotta see this.” Mark said, half laughing. There were voices in the background talking loudly, Johnny couldn’t tell if they were angry or not. 

“See what?” Johnny asked, raising his eyebrow even though Mark couldn’t see. 

“Taeyongs fighting someone right now, I don’t know who the other kid is but they are…” Mark paused and said something to someone in the background, and then finished, “Just going at it, its kinda beautiful,” 

“How did Taeyong manage to get into a fight at 9:30 am?” Johnny demanded lazily, sitting up slowly and resting his bodyweight on his elbow. His vision was still clouded and blurry from lack of sleep. 

“God, right, only Taeyong could, but I don’t know man, I’ve just caught the end of it, its pretty gnarly though,” Mark explained, “Came out of nowhere too apparently, no one seems to know if either of them even really talked before hand.” He broke away from the phone to yell something incoherent. 

“Mark, I’m going back to bed.” Johnny said, laying back down on his bed and closing his eyes tight, rubbing his forehead like he had a headache, “Thank you for you call but honestly, Taeyong getting in a fight isn’t that unheard of, and I’m sure I’ll catch the next one,” 

“Your loss. See ya,” Mark chimed, starting to reply to someone in the background before the phone was off. 

 The dial tone went off in Johnnys ear, but he made no effort to move or take the phone away and remained still with his eyes squeezed tightly. He couldn’t wait to get out of this town and away from this people whose main idea of entertainment is beating each other into a pulp over nothing. And then Ten was back in his head for the first time since he’d left the bridge. Well the first time he’d admit. He’d thought about Ten most of last night. Trying to figure him out, he supposed, but he never came close. He’d mostly thought about what Ten had said. How he’d called him bored or ordinary or whatever, Johnny didn’t remember the exact phrasing. 

Well, he was awake now. He’d lost any hope of falling back to sleep and continuing his dream in which he was a world famous surfer who’d lost a limb due to shark attack but didn’t let it stop him from following his dreams and winning international surfing competitions. Maybe thats what Johnny would do in his real life. Not the shark attack part, but maybe he’d become a professional surfer. That’d be a non illegal way to find adrenaline. So fuck Ten and his thievery and his theories on whats in best interest for Johnny without even barely knowing him. 

Johnny sighed. He’d been sighing a lot more than usual lately. He pushed himself up off the mattress and swung his legs off and onto the floor. He was still wearing the button up and jeans he’d worn yesterday, and he had creases and indents covering his body from the harsh seams. He stood up gingerly and made his way out of his bedroom and down the front stairs, out into the kitchen. His parents had left earlier in the morning, as they always did, and likely wouldn’t be home until much much much later, as they always would. So he had the house to himself today. 

 He could do whatever he wanted today. 

 He could do anything at all today.  

 He had nothing to do today. 

He stared at his open fridge for a few moments hoping to find something he wanted to eat. Something difficult to cook, so it would kill some of his time today. There was nothing. He found himself thinking about the waterlogged pork belly laying on the bottom of the river, before kicking the thought out of his head. He wasn’t going to think about that anymore. That was a weird hiccup in the story of his life. He wasn’t going to think about it anymore. 

He pulled out his phone. 

**To: Doyoung (9:47 am)** **  
** **\--What’s up?**

He stared at the message, waiting for a response. Hoping Doyoung was in the middle of a classic adventuring mood and wanted Johnny to come pick him up right now so they could drive to the next town over just to buy coffee or something similar. Or even maybe wanted Johnny to come over so they could watch old movies or dramas and sit in his bedroom. Maybe he was planning a party tonight with all of their old classmates and it was gonna be the best night of their lives. By the time the actual response came, Johnny had gone through every possible amazing adventure they could have today. But all he said was: 

**Doyoung (9:49 am)**

**\--Working, why?**

**To: Doyoung (9:49 am)**

**\--When do you get off? Want to hang out?**

**Doyoung (9:50 am)**

**\--I’m pretty tired, I’m probably just going to go to bed. Another time.  
**

And that was fine. That was great. That meant that Johnny had more time to do… something. Pick up a hobby. Maybe he’d start to knit and surprise his friends with personalized knit sweaters. Do his friends even wear sweaters? He didn’t know. Suddenly the walls felt like they were closing in around him. Does Doyoung own a single sweater? Would he even wear one that Johnny made? Why couldn’t he remember if Doyoung wears sweaters? Theres no way that Taeyong does, right? He's pretty sure he's seen Doyoung in a sweater.  


“Is this a panic attack?” Johnny asked his fridge, surprising himself by speaking out loud.

The fridge of course, said nothing. 

And what Johnny did next he could have said was the biggest mistake of his life. 

**To: Ten (9:55 am)**

**\--So Monday 4 pm?**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ill write another chapter whenever i get inspired i guess . thought about this all day at work today .  
> bless you all for ur kudos and comments u made me wanna keep writing <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL im sorry if ur reading this as its coming out because i am a mess  
> i edited this while drunk as hell so thats cool   
> next chapter is coming literally so soon i have so many ideas and they all SUCK but yall get what im giving ookay   
> (i scream into the void at the maybe 2 ppl who r reading this lmao)

Now Johnny wasn’t an idiot, that had already been established, sort of. Well, maybe it should be unestablished because he was currently standing on the same bridge that he had thrown the god forsaken bag of food into a few days previously, waiting for the very same boy who’d tricked him into being an accomplice which had, in turn, led to him to the aforementioned act of throwing an entire bag of food into the river. This time however, he had no explanation to give to people looking in from the outside about why he came here to see him again. But luckily. Again. No one asked. No one was looking in from the outside. So he could continue to not even have to think about his reasoning. 

But just because Johnny wasn’t trying to figure out his reasoning, doesn’t mean that I’m not. And here are just a few of the possibilities I’ve considered thus far:

  1. Ten was right and Johnny was incredibly bored with his life, and needs some sort of  excitement.
  2. Johnny is an idiot. (Not really a theory.)
  3. Ten is the most confusing person on earth and Johnny has more questions to ask him, because he cares a lot, for some reason.  
  4. Johnny is hoping that suddenly Ten will just be wanting Korean lessons, and he can make a few dollars, and head home at the end of the day all the better. 
  5. Johnny is having a midlife crisis at age 18 and therefore making questionable decisions. 
  6. Johnny thinks this is a dream (potentially coma induced) and figures he won’t have any sort of consequences as soon as he wakes up in his own bed the next morning. 



Unfortunately we won’t completely know until Johnny himself figures it out, so we, the viewers, have nothing else to do but wait. So until then, I guess, we’ll have to theorize for ourselves. 

But anyways, obnoxious self insert aside, Ten was late. 

Johnny was starting to get uncomfortable. He’d been standing on the edge, staring down at the coursing waters, trying to not think about anything at all. The anxiety was setting in, now, and got progressively worse as the minutes ticked on. Was Ten even coming? He was barely 5 minutes late, but Johnny couldn’t stop the thoughts from bubbling up, like lava under the layers of tectonic plates. Was that even the right words? Johnny hadn't done so well in science.   


“John.” A voice spoke from behind him. Ten. Ten probably knew all about the lava and the plates. Fucking asshole.   


“Johnny.” Johnny corrected him, trying to keep the grin of anticipation off of his face as he angled his head to look at the other boy. He wasn’t thinking about it. He wasn’t going to think about it. He wasn’t thinking about how all of his doubts completely lifted and vanished into the ether the moment he heard his name. 

“You came.” Ten said, he had a cigarette between his lips that stayed perfectly straight as he talked. He also had a black eye, and a scrap on the side of his cheekbone. Johnny didn’t dare ask him from what, maybe he was afraid of the answer, maybe he just didn't care. He wasn't sure which at this point.  

“So did you.” Johnny reminded him, waving a hand in front of his face to clear the smoke with a pointed cough, that was ignored completely. 

“I guess so." Ten shrugged noncommittally, "C’mon, I have a cool place we can go.” He grinned, snatching the cigarette from his mouth and letting out a small cloud of smoke, that went directly into Johnnys face to his dismay. He turned back toward where Johnny had parked and gestured for him to follow. He walked with purpose, like every step he took meant something. Johnny wondered how he walked. Probably not like that. He probably looked like a confused giraffe. Ten cut sideways without warning, making Johnny stumble back a bit, and, without hesitation, led Johnny down a small path hugging the side of the Bridge, the grass worn down from many peoples feet before them. It smelt like urine and something else Johnny couldn't place and honestly didn't want to. Ten gracefully hoped down a small hill, and turned back at Johnny, looking almost proud at where he'd brought them, "Ta-da?" He said. It was a question, for some reason, but Johnny didn't think it required a response.   


There was a makeshift sort of fort structured under the bridge, which actually provided a surprising amount of space, it came along with a large pink floral couch that had been crammed awkwardly into a cobweb-y corner, as well as large ripped blue tarps tied with ropes to the pipes above their heads, keeping the space completely hidden from anyone that would happen to walk by. There was a small wooden home-made looking table in the center of the 'room' covered in melted wax and ineligible graffiti, mostly in english, a bit in a language Johnny recognized but didn’t know by name. Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust and cigarette ash. It was pretty gross, if Johnny was being honest, but Ten seemed too proud of it for him to say so.  

“Do you… do you live here?” Johnny asked, stepping gingerly over a small pile of smashed glass and looking down at Ten nervously. 

Ten snorted and shook his head, “Just hang out here sometimes. Found it totally by random.” He kicked a piece of rotten wood with the toe of his boot, and tossed the bookbag he’d been carrying on the table. It clinked like it was filled with glass of some sort, "I put that tarp here, but other than that it was all like this when I got here." 

“Oh. Cool.” Johnnys mind was calming screaming at him to grab his stuff and leave right now, but his feet stayed anchored to the dusty rocks and his eyes stayed focused on Ten. 

“So.” Ten turned back to him with an almost childlike smile, flopping over on the couch gracefully, letting a large cloud of dust and god knows what puff out around him, “What do you want to do?”   


Johnny stepped down, through the first tarp, the one Ten had put up there, angling his neck as to not hit his head on the low hanging cement, “What do you mean?” 

“ _You_ wanted to hang out, I don’t know,” Ten shrugged, staring down at his feet which barely touched the ground and were swinging back and forth as if on tempo to an unheard beat. 

“Whatever… whatever you want to do,” Johnny replied, awkwardly. He was expecting anything other than this, he’d half expected Ten to show up with a stolen car, yelling at him to get in. Or something dramatic and over the top. But they were just hanging out. Almost like they were friends or something. 

Ten looked up at him and studied his face, “You think I’m a total delinquent, don’t you?” He asked, weirdly without even a hint of venom in his voice.

“What happened to your face?” Johnny asked finally, on a burst of confidence that surprised him. Something about Ten made his normal anxiety die down. 

“Got in a fight." Ten responded, shortly, "What were you expecting we were going to do today?” He fired back without missing a beat. He seemed almost upset, but Johnny couldn’t figure out why. 

“A fight? With who?” Johnny was taken aback slightly, “Is it your… your parents or…?” His stomach was climbing up into his throat, making his mouth taste like bile and strangely sawdust.   


“Not how this works, you have to answer my question first.” Ten was looking at his feet again, but they weren’t swinging anymore. 

Johnny wasn’t aware they were playing a game with rules of any sort, “Okay.” He replied slowly, careful not to step over any bounds, “I don’t know, I thought we were going to… Steal something or… maybe like...“ He trailed off as Ten whipped his head back up again, looking irritated, “You can’t blame me! The first time we met, you sort of--.” 

“That’s not all I do, I’m not like the fucking thief lord, man. In fact that was the first time I’d done that, I’ve never broken into a house before.” Ten cut him off, eyes blazing. 

“Then why did you…” Johnny started to say. Started to ask how he could possibly be so good at it then. Why he did it at all. Why he had to have Johnny there to do it. But he stopped himself, in a desperate attempt to change the mood, “The Thief Lord? Like the venice movie?” He asked, instead. 

Ten lowered his eyes from Johnny again and shrugged, “Yeah, I guess, I haven’t seen the movie.” 

“God, I wish you were the thief lord, that’d honestly be a lot more cool,” Johnny joked, hoping he didn’t seem as uncomfortable as he felt. 

“I’m sorry to disappoint but we can’t all be Scipio Massimo, Johnathan,” Ten replied, instantly in a completely different mood, completely switched as if he hadn’t been out for blood half a second ago. He was the most emotionally unpredictable person Johnny had ever met. At least he wasn’t angry anymore, everything was turning up roses, or whatever. 

“Johnny.” Johnny corrected again, smiling partially because he was proud he’d made Ten smile, partially because this kid who robbed people for a hobby knows the real name of the fucking thief lord from The Thief Lord.

“Okay. Johnny.” Ten agreed, he paused for a second and butted out the cigarette Johnny hadn’t even realized he’d been smoking, “And no, it wasn’t my parents, it was just some kid.” He answered finally, sounding somewhat resigned.

Johnny almost asked another question, but stopped himself. Talking to Ten was like walking on thin ice, one wrong step and the both of them would leave today ice cold and damp, Johnny had never understood that phrase before exactly now, “Now you ask me a question.” He prompted.

Ten laughed in response and nodded vigorously, something about the way he moved his body felt tensed, “Um. Okay. What’s your favourite colour?” He asked. 

Johnny sighed loudly, “Seriously? That’s the best you can do?” He responded, overdramatically. 

“Christ Mr. 20-questions-police, just answer the question.” Ten said in mock anger, kicking his legs out and over the arm of the chair and dropped his head down off the cushion, the longer pieces of his hair grazing the rocks below. 

“Fine. Blue.” Johnny answered, after thinking it over for a minute or two. 

“Interesting. Pegged you for a red sort of guy.” Ten replied, humming quietly and staring up at the cement sky. 

“Well you pegged wrong.” Johnny wasn’t sure what he was saying at this point, but he was just grateful to have Ten in a good mood, and didn’t want to say or do anything to ruin it. 

“Well you’re an ass.” Ten responded quickly, seeming almost genuine if not for the small smile spreading across his face. 

“Anyways, its my turn, and I want to know why you got in a fight with some random kid.” Johnny stated, maybe it was a daring move, but it was too late to take it back. Plus it was the rules of the game to answer, and Ten seemed like someone to strongly believe in playing by the rules of school yard games. 

Ten let out a long sigh, his breath whistling between the gaps in his teeth and he groaned, “It was dumb really, I just sort of…” He paused, “It was stupid, really, a situation that could’ve been avoided if I spoke a word of Korean, which is exactly why I need you in the first place, but I don’t and so…” He paused again, “Basically he somehow got the idea that the bike I was carrying happened to be the same one that was stolen off of his front porch a few days ago, his little sisters or whatever, which I tried to tell him that was ridiculous, because I wasn’t in the country a few days ago, and then he punched me.” He seemed almost embarrassed which surprised Johnny. 

“Was it his sisters bike?” Johnny asked pointlessly, he already knew the answer. 

“Nope, not your turn,” Ten shut him down quickly and paused to think, pulling out another cigarette from his crumpled pack and placing it behind his ear, “Umm… Why did you come here today?” He asked finally, turning and looking toward Johnny with a knowing look. He knew this was a question Johnny couldn’t answer. 

“Because…well… Hm. Okay.” Johnny was stalling and he knew it. It wasn’t a hard question to answer, but for some reason, he just couldn’t find the words necessary. 

“Take your time, buddy,” Ten said, pushing his body back onto the couch with a loud grunt. He quietly started humming the jeopardy theme, moving his head back and forth in time with the beat. Literally who is this kid? 

“I was bored, I guess.” Johnny answered, desperate just to make the song he was singing stop, he was watching Ten carefully to measure his reaction. He wasn’t sure why he cared so much. But he wasn’t thinking about it. 

“I told you.” Ten replied, cackling loudly, making Johnny jump slightly, and throwing a first up in success, “You got the smallest fraction of the feeling of actually living life and not just waiting to die and now you’ve realised how bored you were, right?” He crowed and kicked his legs in the air, like his pride was too big to express in words alone. 

“No.” Johnny said firmly, “Not like that. My friends were just busy today.” He shouldn’t have said he was bored. He shouldn’t have said he was bored. He shouldn’t have said anything. He shouldn’t have come here today. 

“Sure, okay.” Ten wiped his eye of an imaginary tear from laughter and grinned up at Johnny in a way that suddenly made Johnny want to smash his face in. Here was the anger again. Seemed Ten was the only person actually capable of unleashing it, and he seemed to be all too aware of that fact. 

Suddenly Johnny was talking and he didn’t seem to be able to close in mouth in time before saying, quietly in an almost hiss, “Stop acting like you fucking know everything. Like you know every move I’m about to make. You don’t.” Where was this anger coming from? This wasn’t like him at all. Or at least it used to not be like him at all. Maybe it did. He was having a hard time making definite statements these days. 

Ten looked up lazily, he didn’t seem affected by the pure venom dripping from Johnnys words and grinned, “I know your next move is to storm off, and get into your car, probably insulting me on your way out, and then swearing to yourself you’ll never talk to me again. So maybe I kinda do know everything.” He stated, in the annoying way he stated everything he’s ever stated and likely ever will state anytime in the near future. 

Johnny froze, staring at Ten. He’d been trapped, if he did what Ten had predicted, which of course he was about to, then he would be admitting Ten was right about something, and right now admitting that would be worse than getting his head ripped off by wild wolves. But if he didn’t, then he would be forced to stay standing here, getting psychoanalyzed by a short fucking dirty know-it-all on a bed bug infested couch. And he wasn’t necessarily about to do that, either. 

Somehow, his mind decided then, that the perfect and most reasonable midground here, was to pick up the bookbag that Ten had left abandoned on the small wooden table, and to, in a habit he apparently picked up since meeting him, throw it as far as he could into the river next to them. 

Ten’s mouth fell open and he jumped off of the couch like someone had lit it on fire, “You just…” He trailed off, staring incredulously from the strap of his bag, that was the only part of his bag not completely submerged under water, and Johnny himself, “There was 50,000 won in there! What the fuck did you just…” He started toward the edge of the water in desperation, looking almost like he was ready to jump in. Johnny knew the currents were to dangerous to swim here, and knew that Ten knew that, and knew his bag was gone forever. But he didn’t care. If he wasn’t so angry he’d probably feel badass.

“50,000 won that you probably stole from some poor old man? Thats karma for you, Ten.” Johnny let out an abrasive laugh and picked up his own bag from the ground and started to head toward the path that’d led them there, he turned back, on one last burst of adrenaline, and smirked as annoyingly (he hoped) as Ten had been all day and half yelled, “Didn’t predict that, I guess.” 

To his dismay, Ten didn’t seem upset, he stood back up from the waters edge and looked back at Johnny, cocking his head slightly and looking pensive, “Yeah, right, Johnny Seo throwing something into the river out of anger, no way I could’ve predicted that,” He smiled slightly, looking satisfied, “See you Thursday, then.” 

Johnny hovered there awkwardly for a second. He couldn’t let Ten get the last word. But he had nothing to say. So he left. As he always had when conflict arises. He left and he got into his car, and he swore to himself to never talk to Ten again. He groaned to himself. As least Ten had been wrong about the insult on the way out. Wait. No he hadn’t. He had been right about everything. 

Johnny ran a hand through his hair and stared out his car window toward the bridge. Was he really that predictable?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is so much build up in my head that might not actually make sense once on paper but i have MANY ideas and every TINY detail is gonna relate to something eventuallly do not u worry im still a lil drunk also its 3 am Good Evening   
> ur kudos & reviews r making me cry thnx for thinking im funny pls tell my rl friends that bc they did NOT get the memo


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come on and slam and welcome to the jam its 6:48 am and there is not a grammar mistake that i don't do, nothing is sacred i've done em all and i'll do it again   
> cool yeah nice

Johnny is woken up far too early the next day by a hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. Before he’s even opened his eyes he’s half ready to fight, sitting up slowly while muttering, probably incoherent to whoever is waking him, but muttering nonetheless “Can’t I just get a goddamn minute of sleep without…” “I spent 12 years of my life waking up at…” And other such related topics. 

“Your friend is here.” The antagonial force responded, permanently unbothered by anything Johnny could throw at them. The force just so happened to take the form of his father, which was unfortunate. 

“What?” Johnny asked, attempting to blink the sleep out of his eyes, to no avail, and squinting up toward him through clouded eyes, “Tell them to leave.” 

“Its important, they say.” The demon masquerading as his dad said.

“What could be…” Johnny trailed off as his eyes snapped open in surprise. His friends knew better than to stop at his house or wake him up for any reason unless it was… “Wolves.” He muttered, mostly to himself. 

His dad had no comment to this and just sighed, waved a hand vaguely toward his half asleep son, and left the room. 

Johnny pushed himself out of his bed, suddenly afraid of what this surprise visit could entail, and stumbled down the stairs toward his front door, blatantly aware of his half nakedness. But arriving at the entry, found that there were no wolves in fact, nor any sort of moderate emergency, except for a certain boy who he’d been trying to avoid for the last couple days. 

Ten stood, smiling way too big for 7:45 am on a Friday morning, in the threshold of his house, with a large garbage bag filled with dozens of some sort of roundish objects, acting like it was the most casual thing in the world to be there, “Hi!” He greeted, cheerily. His black eye had faded to a pale yellowy green colour that barely showed up against his skin. 

“You… No. Why are you here? How did you find my house?” Johnny asked, skipping the salutations entirely.

“You had you address on the poster.” Ten offered, dwelling almost a step through the doorway, like a vampire who couldn’t enter without an invitation. And he might as well have been. 

“No I didn’t.” Johnny responded. Suddenly twice as aware of his half nakedness. 

“Oh.” Ten said, shrugging nonchalantly, “Then I guess I followed you home.” 

“You…” Johnny rubbed the bridge of his nose, “You… did what?” He asked, barely able to be surprised by a single thing the other boy did at this point. 

 Ten shrugged again, “You missed our appointment yesterday, what was I supposed to do?” Like it was the most obvious thing in the world,  

“Get the fuck off my property,” Johnny replied shortly, suddenly fully awake and entirely ready to fight if necessary, “You have no right to be here.” 

Ten said nothing, he was swaying back and forth slightly, craning his neck in a way he probably thought was subtle to stare into the kitchen. 

“I’m gonna fucking call the cops if you don’t leave right now.” Johnny pressed, aware that he had nothing of actual value backing up his threats.

“Are you guys making eggs in there?” Ten asked, ignoring Johnny entirely. 

“Leave.” Johnny replied, taking a step back to make room to close the door, but hesitated when he noticed Tens facial expression, which turned suddenly… Well, not serious, but the closest he’d been in a while. 

“I’m sorry,” Ten spoke up, moving forward slightly so he could catch the door if Johnny tried to close it, “For… Monday. You know.”

“What?” Johnny prompted, acting clueless and waiting for him to elaborate, even though he knew exactly what he was referring to. 

“I shouldn’t have said everything I said.” Ten explained, avoiding any choice words and remaining as vague as possible. 

Johnny sighed loudly just for Tens sake and leaned his forehead against the door frame, saying nothing. 

“Its not my place to tell you what you think or what you want.” Ten finished, lamely, looking almost too comfortable to be apologizing right now, “I’m also sorry for… Everytime we’ve met before then,” 

Johnny sighed again, louder and longer, and looked down toward Ten, who was still significantly shorter than him even wearing his boots which added at least an inch or two, “Whats your deal?” He asked, pointedly. 

“Don’t have one,” Ten responded, shrugging for the 20th time since they’d started talking.

“You see me putting up posters, call me because you get into your mind that you.. Need me or whatever and then do…” He trailed off and glanced behind him, to make sure the coast was clear, “Whatever you did. And then follow me home, show up in the early goddamn cracks of the morning and expect me to be okay with it?” He sighed for the third time, louder and longer than the rest, “Why are you so obsessed with me,” He asked, emphasizing each word like it was it’s own sentence. 

Ten was watching him carefully. He almost seemed like not himself right now. Or not at least what Johnny knew of himself. He seemed less sure, more pensive, more careful and calculated. The Ten from their first meeting definitely wouldn’t be at his door apologizing. Maybe it was character development, “I think you’re… interesting, John, think you have potential to be amazing,”  

Johnny, in that moment, was stuck between slamming the door in his face and laughing. He chose the later, and then straightened up, asserting his altitude, “Do you hear yourself talk? Do you? Because literally everything that comes out of your mouth is the most pretentious dribble I’ve ever fucking heard,” He said, at this point not caring if he broke the thin ice, not caring if Ten got mad, not caring if he ended up cold and wet. 

Ten, to his surprise, laughed loudly, too loudly, making Johnny flinch and shush him, “Yeah, I know.” He answered, grinning, “Can I come in, then?” 

“Not even moderately, dude.” Johnny responded, seriously. He felt that he should be angrier than he was. But he was having a hard time even feeling irritated right now. He hesitated and rolled his shoulder awkwardly, “I’m sorry for throwing your bag in the river, I know you had money in there, that wasn’t… very cool,” He barely felt sorry, but Tens apology had made him feel obligated. 

Ten smiled softly and looked away, “Don’t worry, there wasn’t even any money in there, I was just hoping you’d feel shitty and go get it for me. Y’know with your long titan arms.” 

If Johnny was any less tired, he would get angry at that. Another lie. As usual. But instead, as the theme of the morning seemed to be, he laughed in response. Maybe it was the delirium, maybe he was still half asleep, either way, he took a step back and held his arm out, as if to present his homestead. 

Ten looked up at his face and studied him for a moment or so. Johnny hated when he did that and tried to keep his face as blank as possible. But Ten seemed to decide he liked what he saw in his weird mind reading moment, and stepped carefully into his house, “Weird place,” He commented. 

“Don’t make me regret letting you in,” Johnny threatened, swinging the front door closed with a loud slam. 

“Sorry. Sorry, its beautiful and… uh…” Ten trailed off as he focused on a full size realistic portrait of an old white man, completely naked, standing in a field of skulls, “Um. Artistic.” 

“Shut up,” Johnny responded good naturedly, “Thats actually an antique, my mother spent hundreds in an auction for it back in America, so basically you’re an asshole.” 

“I bet.” Ten said, grinning as he turned to look at the umbrella stand that was made out of old bicycle parts and batteries, “Its cool,” He finished, sounding genuine enough that Johnny would’ve thought it was if it wasn’t, you know, Ten. 

“Whats in the bag?” Johnny asked, extremely aware of the black garbage bag the other boy was dragging across his carpet. 

“What bag?” Ten replied earnestly. He was staring at an old family portrait with Johnny as a young child now with a small smirk. 

“Tell me or get out of my house,” Johnny answered, narrowing his eyes in a way he hoped was perceived as threatening. 

Ten lifted the bag slightly, making whatever was inside clink and rattle in an obnoxious way and shrugged, again, “I don’t know, I found it on the way here, I figured if you refused to talk to me I could somehow convince you it was valuable or something so you’d be so overcome with curiosity that you’d have to let me in,” He sounded so genuine, and not even slightly embarrassed at his tendency for deceit, that it almost made Johnny throw him back onto the street again. 

“You’re the worst,” Johnny said finally, he was leaning against the living room doorway with his arms crossed, feeling like he was a proud parent watching his son play around in a gymnasium. If his son was a lying garbage child who brought likely flea infested bags of trash into his living area. 

Ten was about to say something, but was cut off by the sudden presence of Johnnys mother, who seemed to appear out of nowhere, smiling like she was a child on Christmas morning, “Is this your friend?” She asked, in Korean, looking at Ten with big eyes. 

Johnny looked at Ten and back at her, and replied in Korean, “I wouldn’t quite say that,” The language barrier was a truly magnificent thing in situations like this. 

“You aren’t friends?” His mum echoed, looking ultimately unbothered still with a large smile on her face, “Does he want breakfast anyways?” 

“No, I don’t think so,” Johnny answered, trying to avoid parental interaction at any cost.    
“I’d love breakfast.” Ten responded, in perfect Korean, with a giant smile mirroring that of Johnnys mother, “What are you having?” 

“What the fuck.” Johnny said.

Ten turned to him looking faux alarmed and concerned with an evil glint in his eye that Johnny hated more than anything, “What?” He echoed, innocently. 

“Just when I start to find you remotely likeable,” Johnny groaned, turning to walk out of the living room.  

“Don’t be a spoil sport, Johnathan, lets have a nice breakfast together,” Ten called after him with a syrupy sweet quality that made him want to dig his own eyes out, “Your mums gone to all this work.” 

And thats how they ended up, facing eachother across the table, with either of Johnnys parents on each side of them, pretending to be interested in the pleasant chatter about the weather and the state of the school systems.   

“You speak Korean.” Johnny hissed for the 4th time since they’d sat down, avoiding eye contact entirely as he pushed a couple loose grains of salt around on the table. Another fucking lie from king liar himself. Why was he still surprised, as if that hadn’t been what he was signing up for in the beginning. 

“A little,” Ten replied offhandedly as he laughed at one of Johnnys dads terrible jokes, “You’re so funny Mr. Seo!” He exclaimed, pretending to focus his attention on him while watching Johnny out of the corner of his eye. 

Johnny was fed up. For real this time. He pushed his chair out and stood up quickly, shooting a glare toward Ten as fast as he could before his parents had noticed he was up, he smiled pleasantly, trying to make it look moderately, “I’m not feeling well, I’ll likely go sleep for a little more. Since I was woken up so early and all.” This wasn’t untrue, he felt like he could throw up or pass out or go into anaphylactic shock at any moment. He shot another glare at Ten with that last statement, but the other boy barely seemed to notice. 

“Are you alright?” His mother asked, clearly concerned, but not enough to let it disturb her meal.

“Fine. Just tired. If you want Ten to leave I can get him to,” Johnny offered, entirely for his own sake. 

“No, no don’t worry,” His dad responded, taking a sip of coffee from an old stained mug and smiling at his son, “He is a nice boy. And I’ve always wanted to meet your friends! You never bring people around anymore,” 

Johnny stifled a groan, sigh, laugh combo, and decided it was best to just leave the situation. Shooting Ten what he hoped was a, yet another, meaningful glance before turning on his heel and stomping back up the stairs. He was trying to think, but his thoughts weren’t coming. Every time he thought he knew something, literally anything, about Ten as a person it turned out to be built off of goddamn fucking bullshit lies. He needed to go back to sleep, he didn’t remember falling asleep last night, but he knew it couldn’t have been before 2 am. He was never really the type to stay up late, but recently he’d barely been able to sleep. Unrelated to Ten of course, he’d never give that fucking asshole the satisfaction of affecting Johnny physically. 

Johnny flopped down onto his mattress with a soft ‘oof’ and stared up at the glow in the dark stars he’d stuck up there when he was 11, placed all over on the only half of the ceiling reachable from his bed. Of course Ten spoke Korean. Why wouldn’t Ten speak Korean? Of course he would. Why wouldn’t he? His mind got stuck in these loops a lot lately. His mind was too busy, apparently, to hear the footsteps coming up the stairs toward his room, and almost too loud to hear the gentle knock at his door. 

“John?” Ten called out, softly, “Are you awake?”

Johnny considered not answering but he felt like if he didn’t respond, Ten would not be the type to just leave, so he did, forcing every bit of icy sarcasm he had in his body into this single word, “No.” He said, in Korean. 

Ten inhaled and let the air whistle quietly through the gaps in his teeth. The sound made Johnny want to scream, “Can I come in?” He asked, finally, sounding resigned.

“No.” Johnny repeated. 

“Look, John…” Ten sounded like he was going to say more, but left the sentence hanging open in the air. 

“Leave me alone, Ten.” Johnny groaned, rolling over in his bed to face his back towards the door. 

And then Ten was in his room, standing behind him. Ten wasn’t a very big person in general, but he somehow took up the psychological space of 13 obese men. The presence was overwhelming. Johnny felt claustrophobic, like the walls were tightening in around him. Like someone was blowing up a giant balloon in the middle of the room, making him scramble to find spaces he was able to stay without getting crushed. But no one was. There was just a guy wearing a stupid green jacket holding a garbage bag.

Johnny sat up, and turned to face Ten while still refusing to look at him. He was staring across the room at a small clay owl he’d made in first grade that was sitting on his bookshelf, “What do you expect, Ten? What do you want me to do?” He tried to keep the desperation out of his voice. He was barely even sure what he was asking of him. The owl had chipped black spots all down its back. He supposed it was supposed to be a barn owl. Didn’t really look like a barn owl. 

Ten shifted uncomfortably, and Johnny was suddenly aware that this was the first time he was in power. This was the first time that Ten wasn’t smirking like a piece of shit know it all. Johnny was the only right one here. And it was, honestly, sort of anticlimactic. He probably would’ve savoured this any other day. He just wanted Ten to leave so he could go back to sleep. 

“I’m not some…” Ten started to say, and hesitated shifting his weight from one foot to the other, “I’m not some sort of… big secretive evil criminal force, John, you know? I’m not… whatever it is that you think I am.” He finished awkwardly, at an apparent loss for words. 

Johnny looked over at him for the first time and rubbed the back of his neck, Ten looked twice as small, somehow, in here in this moment, looked like a lost child at the mall looking for his mum, “So?” He questioned, voice cracking slightly. He cleared his throat and continued, “That doesn’t change any of this,” 

Ten nodded, in a sort of understanding that Johnny didn’t think he actually had. That Johnny definitely didn’t have at least, “Okay.” He said simply, “I get it. I’ll leave.” 

“Yeah.” Johnny agreed, pausing before adding a little too forcefully, “Also its fucking Johnny.” 

Ten half smiled, like he was in on some joke that Johnny didn’t understand and nodded again, giving a half salute of sorts, “Okay. See you Monday.” 

And before Johnny could respond, he was gone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're actually staring to like ..............get into the plot now like ... ur actually gonna find some shit out about ten soon , and i swear its probably not gonna b what u think its gonna b   
> i mean, maybe it is, idk


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> doo doo doo i feel like i should be spacing these chapters out more but all i wanna do is write more doo doo doo  
> & all ur reviews are making my heart warm bless yall for reading, i hope i dont let u down.

It took a lot of convincing to get Johnny to leave the house the following day, but it was Marks birthday and he knew he would be a terrible person if he missed it. And just in case he didn’t know, Mark had helpfully reminded him repeatedly on the phone, as well as by an assortment of texts and kakao messages and even a handwritten letter for days leading up to the party. Explaining to your dad why the first letter he’d received since he was a kid was in the biggest envelope possible, and completely empty except for a small rectangle of paper with “terrible person” written on it in both English and Korean (“For emphasis,” Mark had clarified, the next day.) was more difficult than you would expect. 

“Wild wolves.” Had been the first thing Johnny had said when he picked up the phone barely half way through the first ring, just as he did anytime someone called him unannounced. He was sitting on his bed, balancing a bottle of nail polish precariously on his thigh as he smeared the sparkly red goop onto his fingernails with the elegance of a toddler with no limbs. 

“Why do you always say that? Whats with you and wolves? When has someone ever been eaten by wild wolves? When will anyone ever be eaten by wild wolves? There's no wolves in Seoul, Johnny, this isn’t Chicago.” Mark responded exasperatedly, not bothering with “Hello”s or any sort of formality,  “Just come to my party, dickhead! It’ll be fun and I haven’t seen you in a while.” 

“All your friends are children, it’d be weird for me to be there.” Johnny whined, “And literally what do you think Chicago is? Based on what you say you seem to be convinced it's entirely old men drinking on their porches and threatening to shoot anyone who steps on their lawn and farms lands completely infested with wild wolves,” He demanded, somewhat genuinely. Mark often referenced Johnnys life in America as “Down in the land of sweet tea and moonshine,” and although Johnny had pointed out Chicago on various maps at various times and showed him many pictures of downtown and even around the downtown apartment he’d lived in, Mark didn’t seem to believe it was anything besides corn fields and hillbillies. 

“Doyoungs coming and Taeyong might. I invited my neighbour too, I’m pretty sure he’s older than you. Also a couple guys from school, who are barely younger than you.” Mark replied, “Plus it’s my birthday, so you’re a terrible person if you don’t come.” He paused for a second, like he was about to say something in response about Chicago, but decided against it. 

Johnny nodded in resigned agreement, then remembered Mark couldn’t see him, “Okay. Fine.” He said, as if he were agreeing to smuggle drugs across the border instead of just spending time with his friends who he’d barely seen all summer, “I’m not letting the Chicago thing go though.” 

“Good,” Mark said triumphantly and then added, “Nobody wants to be a square,” referencing a school project they’d done for computer class a few years ago, Johnny could hear the smile in Marks voice, and smiled himself against his better judgement. Only Mark could make him smile like this. 

He honestly didn’t really mind that Marks friends were young, and they weren’t even that young, most were only a year younger than Mark himself, it was more that he was sort of completely convinced they were pure evil. Few things scared Johnny, but most of the things that did took human form in Zhong Chenle and Park Jisung, and it wasn’t that unreasonable, he’d rarely left one of Marks parties with as much hair as he came in, but with twice the amount of marker mustaches on his face. But, of course, it was Mark, and Johnny couldn’t say no to Mark. He was probably just being dramatic, anyways.

And that's how he ended up sitting on the edge of the bathtub, rinsing cake batter and melted plastic off of his brand new expensive dark burgundy jacket, after Jisung, who Johnny genuinely thought was 12 until tonight and still wasn’t entirely sure he isn’t, had tried to bake Mark a birthday cake at 540 degrees fahrenheit in the plastic mixing bowl, insisting it was heat proof, which it was, in fact, not. 

“Nobody wants to be a square,” He reminded himself out loud, trying to mentally justify his choice to come here, or even to leave bed in the morning, he was having a hard time though, as he was gritting his teeth and picked at the egg yolk stuck in his zipper. 

There was a knock at the door and Taeyong stuck his head through, looking more exhausted than usual, “How's your coat?” He asked, crouching down next to Johnny. 

“Salvageable,” Johnny responded in false optimism, not necessarily believing it himself. 

“Chenle won’t stop calling me Taeyongie dongsaeng,” Taeyong sounded like an old war veteran in a nursing home, telling anyone who’ll listen about his days on the battlefield. Which honestly was kind of exactly how Johnny felt right now. 

“That kid is terrifying, dude, I was telling you,” Johnny dropped his jacket on the floor, accepting defeat while he still had his dignity, or at least could pretend he still did. 

“I know, I know, I should’ve listened, I should always listen to you,” Taeyong leaned back against the wall and sunk into a sitting position, “I used to babysit Jisung, he was the sweetest kid,” Now he really sounded like an old man in a nursing home. 

Johnny smiled in sympathy and laughed to himself, half laughing at this entire situation, half laughing imagining Taeyong in 50 years. He’d probably still be beautiful. Asshole, “How's your summer been? I haven’t seen you in a while,” Johnny asked, changing the subject in an attempt to lighten the mood. 

Taeyong shrugged, “Pretty good. Nothing special, working a lot, I guess, summers not as exciting when you aren’t still in highschool. Same bullshit but warmer.” Taeyong was the same age as Johnny but had gradded a few months before him with completely honours, and never hesitated to bring it up in any situation possible. 

Johnny nodded, mostly for lack of something to say.

“What about you? Have you been tutoring? Doyoung mentioned something about that.” Taeyong asked, it was all pointless small talk and Johnny knew he didn’t particularly care. They were friends mostly because of geographical convenience. Not that they didn’t get along, they just had few topics they actually related on. Made conversations awkward.  

“Yeah, a bit,” Johnny answered, after a moment of hesitation. He briefly considered telling him about Ten, but decided against it. Talking about Ten would only make him think about Ten. Would only cement the last couple weeks as an actual part of his life, instead of a weird hiccup that becomes a funny story in 20 years, “Well… barely, I don’t know, I haven’t gotten many calls,” He shrugged, like it was no big deal. Which it sort of wasn’t, he had almost forgotten about it entirely until now. 

“Oh yeah,” Taeyong smiled politely, he was unconsciously picking at his nails and Johnny hated it. 

They fell back into a casual silence.

“Oh!” Johnny spoke out, with the only topic of conversation he could think of, “Mark said you got into a fight? Like a week ago? What was that all about?” 

Taeyong rolled his eyes dramatically and dropped his hands down to the ground in exasperation, “God. Yeah. It was so dumb,” He pretended he hated drama and gossiping and all of that, but would take any chance to talk about, to anyone who cared enough to ask. 

“What happened? Did you start it or?” Johnny asked, pulling his knees against his chest and grinning. He loved hearing about other peoples drama, made him less aware of how little he had at any point ever. 

“I mean… kind of. I threw the first punch, but it was for a good reason,” Taeyong knew Johnny wanted to hear this, and used that to his advantage. Whenever he had a story he knew everyone wanted to hear, he’d drag it out for half an hour, just to piss people off, Johnny supposed. “I was in the park right? I was just on my way to work and then I saw this guy on a bike, right? And it looked sort of familiar and when he got closer I realized it was my fucking sisters,” 

Johnny froze.  _ No fucking way.  _

“And this asshole was riding it all proud, and like… I know my sisters bike because she’s covered it in dinosaur stickers and it has this pom poms on the handles, like there’s no way it wasn’t, plus it had mysteriously disappeared from our porch like the day before but we’d assumed she’d left it in the park or something. And I didn’t know what to do really, cause what the fuck am I supposed to do?,” He kept going, apparently not noticing the look on Johnnys face, “So I stepped in front of his bike to stop him and he almost hit me, but swerved in time, and fell off. So he was on the ground and I walk up to him and I’m like ‘where did you get that bike?’ and he looks at me all innocent and confused and says something in… I don’t know some weird language, and, God bless high school English classes, cause I tried again in English and he spoke it also, and so like he’s all like “I came to Korea yesterday I couldn’t have,” as if I fucking believe that, so then I get on the ground next to him and I… I don’t know it gets a bit hazy here, but yeah.” Taeyong finished proudly, “And I came out barely scratched, you should’ve seen him though man. It was like he was barely trying to fight back, seriously.” 

_ I did see him.  _ Johnny thought, but didn’t dare say. He felt sick to his stomach and couldn’t bring himself to say anything in response except, “That's wild, man,” . Taeyong didn’t seem to notice and grinned in reply.  

“We should head back downstairs, make sure nothing is on fire.” Taeyong suggested, barely even joking and standing up awkwardly, gesturing for Johnny to do the same. 

Johnny barely registered his words, but nodded agreeably anyways. He wasn’t sure why this was affecting him like this. Why the idea of Taeyong punching Ten, the idea of Ten stealing a childs bike for no reason other than to do it, the idea of Ten not fighting back, why all of this made his heart drop past his stomach and straight into his shoes. Walking with an internal organ in your sneakers is just as hard as you would expect, but he didn’t want to have to explain why he was being so weird all of a sudden to Taeyong or to anybody else, so he stood up gingerly and managed to follow Taeyong out of the bathroom and back down the stairs. Nothing was on fire, thank god, but there was a slick even layer of some sort of mystery liquid spreading from the kitchen to the front door, and two people Johnny had never seen before making out on the couch. And Johnny took that, among other things, as his cue to leave. 

It was still pretty warm outside, but Johnny was shivering despite that. He waved a quick goodbye to Mark and company, pointedly avoiding eye contact with Taeyong and Chenle and Jisung, for unrelated respectively unique reasons, and half ran to his parked car, sliding into the drivers seat in a single smooth motion that would’ve made him feel cool as fuck if it was any other situation. 

Before he knew what he was doing, he had pulled out his cellphone, dialed Tens number, and was holding against his ear, gripping the steering wheel with the other hand like it was the last thing keeping him together. 

“John?” Ten asked. Johnny could hear the smile on his face and it made him want to scream. 

“Don’t say anything. Don’t say anything until I’m done talking, okay?” Johnny demanded, too mad to care about or even notice the way his voice hitched in his throat and how he sounded on the verge of tears. A sudden wetness on his face suggested he had passed the verge. 

Ten said nothing, but made a small noise of acknowledgement. 

Johnny took a deep breath, and they sat in silence for a few seconds, until ,before he could properly think, his words were forcing their way out of him in at a speed he couldn’t moderately keep up with, “Who the fuck are you? Is there a single aspect of your life you haven’t completely fabricated?” Johnny half laughed out of disbelief, his words were stumbling down and falling all over eachother, all of his pent up thoughts and feelings were rushing together like water out of a pipe, all trying to get through at once, “All you do is lie and steal and cheat and manipulate. Is that a life even worth living? How do you sleep at night? Never fucking come near me again, fucking… I don’t know, leave fucking Korea or something. Just get the fuck out.” He stopped, suddenly out of things to say. All of his anger had dissipated, leaving him hyperventilating and shaking slightly. He wasn’t crying anymore. He was staring straight out at a blinking stop light that cast an inconsistent red glow across his face. 

Ten sighed on the other end of the phone, barely audible, and Johnny heard the clicks of a keyboard. “Where are you right now?” Ten asked, ever so casual. 

“Why does it matter?” Johnny responded, trying to sound threatening, but knowing he just sounded tired. He wasn’t good at being angry.

“Come to the bridge. I’ll meet you there and tell you everything.” Ten spoke, surprisingly calm, “I promise.” He said, as if his word meant anything to Johnny at all. 

“Okay.” Johnny wasn’t sure why he agreed. But of course he did. Good old predictable Johnny was reliable and easy going even when it came to things like this. Someone could kidnap him with words alone, tell him to get into the back of the van with no threat of violence if he didn’t and he’d probably be like “sounds swell,” and compliment their shirt. He hated it. He hated himself for it. But it couldn’t be helped right now. 

And so, he found himself, once again, sitting under the god forsaken bridge, with the pink couch and the tarps. Sitting and waiting for the person he should hate, the person he should’ve stopped talking to after the first day, the person he never should’ve met to begin with, the person who seemed to have Johnny wrapped around his pinky finger without even trying, the person who, Johnny at this point believed, would be the cause of his premature death due to a stress induced heart failure. The person who, to Johnnys great annoyance, had completely changed his life, for better or for worse.  God, He sounded like an idiot. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was .............a lot to write  
> lmk if u enjoyed lmk if u hate me lmk if u like filler bits w other nct members or not


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was gonna apologize for not updating for a while but then i realized its been like 3 days and thats not even a long time at all so ......  
> but i am back in school these a days so i wont b updating every day anymore lmao  
> heres a trashy chapter because im GARBAGE!  
> tw for mention of child pornography

Johnny heard Ten before he saw him, hard to disguise footsteps when the only sound is the water running and his own breathing, but was still surprised when the other boy slipped through the tarp, out of breath and holding a mountain bike with its tires still spinning. He looked different than Johnny had ever seen him, even though Ten always kind of looked like he had climbed out of a sewer he always had a certain grace about it, each stray hair feel with a purpose, each rip in his jeans was almost too calculated to be artificially created, but now he looked…. Just, different. Unprepared, messy, casual. Johnny couldn’t explain why.

“Hey.” Ten greeted, steadying his breath and placing the bike against a cement pillar awkwardly, uncomfortable didn’t look good on him, Johnny almost regretted putting it on him to begin with. 

“Hey.” Johnny returned, watching him carefully, like he was an unpredictable wild animal who could strike at any moment. 

They stood (Ten stood, Johnny was crouched on the rocks at the edge of the river.) in silence for a few seconds before Ten broke it by flopping loudly onto the couch and pulling out a cigarette in the same fluid motion, any previous tension completely evaporated, “You called me here, don’t make me start the argument,” He said, looking at Johnny pointedly.    
That wasn’t entirely true, as Ten had very directly called Johnny here, but he didn’t point that out, instead nodded and gulped, anxiety somehow gave him an absurd amount of saliva. He glanced toward the cracks of sky between the sheets of tarp and almost regretted starting this. No not almost. Completely. He wished they could just drop it and Johnny could go home. But it was too late, and Ten was waiting for him to speak, so he spoke, “I, uh, may have, overreacted on the phone,” He started, awkwardly, refusing to make eye contact, “But I don’t… think I said anything that was .. uncalled for,” 

“You told me that my life wasn’t worth living and that I had to leave your country” Ten pointed out, there was an even amount of humor and harshness to his tone, that must have taken years to perfect.    
Johnny paused, he felt a pang of guilt he didn’t want to feel, but he found out that apparently you couldn’t unfeel things once you’ve felt them, and that it was more or less written in his autobiography from now on. On August 2nd, a little after 11 pm, Johnny felt guilty because on August 2nd a little before 11 pm, Johnny hurt Tens feelings, after Ten, a few days previously, stole a bike from an 11 year old. 

“Can I ask you something?” Ten asked, breaking the silence that Johnny was barely aware existed after getting too caught up in his brain.

“You just did.” Johnny replied. 

Ten laughed a hardly humorous laugh, and made an agreeable noise, “Okay, so it’s your turn.” He responded. 

“What?” 

“Ask me a question now.” 

Johnny looked at Ten for the first time in a few minutes and raised an eyebrow, “I’m not… this isn’t a game Ten , this isn’t like a fun…” He trailed off, not really knowing where he was going in the first place. 

Ten sighed, and kicked at the air, “You want information, I want information. It’s not a game. It’s a system so we both get our answers in a fair and just way.” 

Johnny ran a hand through his hair. It did make sense. But he hated Ten for it, “Uh, okay. Why did you pretend to not know any Korean?” He asked, stressing each syllable like he was trying to convey every doubt he had in his sentence. 

Ten looked him in the eye with a look of contempt, “Seriously? That’s like the most boring question you could ask!” He complained. 

“I’m playing your game, Ten, you said you were going to explain everything, now…” Johnny groaned loudly, trailing off in a way he hoped sounded threatening. 

Ten moaned overdramatically, like a kid whose parents refused to buy him ice cream at the store, and then stopped, head resting on the backrest, staring straight up, “It’s not that deep, John, okay? I know a few phrases, I can ask for directions, tell people what I want, hold basic conversations,” He raised his legs in the air, trying and failing to reach up for the bridge with his shoeless toes, Johnny didn’t remember him taking his shoes off, “Why would I come to Korea with absolutely 0 language skills?” He asked, and then looked over at Johnny holding his finger out, “And that is not my question.” 

“You said you barely knew how to ask for directions,” Johnny protested, recalling the phone call to the best of his ability, “And right after that the first thing you said to me was ‘I don’t speak Korean well,’?”    
“My  _ mum _ said I barely know how to ask for directions,” Ten corrected. 

“You  _ told _ me that was you!” Johnny pointed out in frustration. 

“Oh. Yeah. I guess it was.” Ten replied thoughtfully, lighting another cigarette.

“So you lied.” Johnny stated, wanting Ten to say the words himself, knowing there was a 100 to 1 chance he would. 

“Hardly.” Ten said forcefully, “Why do I make you so angry?” He asked after a pause, on a sudden topic change.

 “Wh--What do you mean?” Johnny stuttered out, he hadn’t been expecting the question, and wasn’t entirely sure how he was supposed to respond, “Because you… You lie all the time and you--”

“Everybody lies, Johnny. I can guarantee every single one of your friends has lied to you. You’ve lied, too. No doubt to me, no doubt to them. Have you really told them what you’ve been doing for the last 2 weeks?”

Johnny shook his head a few too many times to look casual, “But they don’t… I don’t… I’m… No ones asked.” He’d rehearsed his entire speech 20 or so times on the drive over, but somehow, like always,Ten has completely managed to throw him off kilter. 

Ten shrugged in an almost smug way, “You didn’t ask me if I spoke Korean either.” He responded.

“I asked you if you stole the bike.” Johnny shot back, confident he’d caught Ten in a corner. Then remembered Ten didn’t know he knew about it, and added offhandedly, “When you got beaten up, that time. I know you took it.” 

Ten didn’t seem bothered, “Wasn’t your turn to ask a question, if it had been, I would’ve told you,” He said simply, “I have left out convenient truths, but I hardly consider that a crime.”  

“Okay, so, you didn’t lie, so what? You stole a 11 year old girls bike from her yard,” Johnny refused to let Ten feel like that was a victory. 

Ten looked confused for a moment, no doubt at the level of detail included in Johnny's accusal, until nodding, “I took the bike, sure, never denied it, but ‘borrowing’ is a key word you’re missing from that sentence. I was on my way to bring it back right before Mr. Pretty-face-tough-guy came lunging at me like a lovesick gorilla.” Ten explained, as if it were the most acceptable and casual thing in the world to have borrowed a child bike for 4 days, and it was the most outrageous thing for her older brother to be upset about it. 

“Point is you stole.” Johnny reminded him. How the fuck did he manage to act like he got out of everything Johnny threw at him? 

“Borrowed.” Ten corrected, “She never used it anyways, been in the exact same spot every time I’d pass by for literally weeks.” He paused for a moment and then grinned up at Johnny, “But hey, you knew all that, so guess I’m not the only stalker, huh?”

Johnny shook his head and stared at the ground, “Guy who beat you up. Girls brother. Good friend of mine.” He explained, simply.

“No way!” Ten exclaimed, looking genuinely excited for some godforsaken reason, “He seemed cool. Pretty and a good puncher. Introduce me some time,” 

“Uh. No.” Johnny cut him off blatantly, unsure even what Ten was trying to get out of it, but knowing he did not want to give it to him. And then remembered they were, in fact, in the middle of an argument. If you could even call it that, at this point, and continued, “What about the old couple? But, no, no you’re Ten…” Johnny trailed off for half a second realizing he even didn’t know his last name, but pressed on, “What if we had gotten caught? I could’ve been arrested because of you!”

“Okay first of all, that was like 3 questions, so I get 3 in a row next time.” (“We’re not playing the game anymore,” Johnny interjected.) Ten responded after hesitating for a moment or two, “And believe me, they weren’t going to call the cops.” Ten knew something Johnny didn’t, and Johnny almost didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of explaining everything like he was oh-so-smart.

“Why.” Johnny said. It was a statement. He didn’t want to admit to wanting to know. 

“Couldn’t risk the police in their house, unless the child porn laws are different here than I thought? If so, we might be in a sticky situation.” Ten explained, with the exact tone of voice Johnny had wanted to avoid. He smirked up at Johnny, clearly exceptionally proud with himself. 

 “What?” Johnny asked, forgetting every bit of anger he’d felt in that moment., “No way…” Ten couldn’t be possibly saying that… 

Ten nodded and grinned, “Thought I could inconvenience the perverts while helping out my fridge at the same time.” He shrugged. 

“How could you possibly know that?” Johnny was genuinely impressed, which he hadn’t thought was possible with Ten until now.   
“Couple days before I was just looking around… just looking, not stealing anything, before you freak, and found a massive stash, it was messed up, behind a fake bookshelf with a fake book trigger thing and everything.” Ten spoke like it was the most casual thing, like it wasn’t a big deal, like it was an everyday thing to break into a strangers house and accidentally find something like … that. 

“Really?” Johnny was shocked, out of everything he’d expected to find out tonight, that was not even on the list, not even on the lists list. 

“Well, not the bookshelf thing, I wish but…” He cut off when he noticed Johnnys face and scoffed, “It was a joke! I was joking! Suck my dick and tell me you’ve never embellished the truth for comedies sake!” Ten exclaimed, waving his hands around for emphasis. 

“This isn’t something that should be made into a joke!” Johnny ignored the fact Ten had suggested anything moderately related to oral sex, and ignored the fact his instinct was, for some godforsaken reason, to ask how on earth he had such an extensive English vocabulary that Johnny himself barely had half of, but he mostly ignored the fact that this night had turned around on a dime, he ignored that he had been crying in his car an hour ago, and he really really ignored the fact that he wasn’t anymore because of Ten, he was really really really ignoring the fact that Ten had an awful tendency to make him feel emotions he hadn’t felt since middle school sometimes all one after another. While ignoring all of that, which was really quite trying on his attention span, he instead asked, “Why didn’t you go to the cops?” Good. Playing it safe. He mentally congratulated himself. 

Ten shrugged, “Then what? Cops conveniently ignore the problem because of their wealthiness and well respected status, and I go to bed hungry. Who wins there?” 

Johnny laughed louder than he was expecting, Ten made nonsense make sense in such a hilarious and natural way. Johnny wished he was like that too, but he could barely make common sense make sense, even to himself. Example 1. He was still here. Example 2. He was having more fun than he had had in weeks. Months, maybe. 

Ten interrupted his thought process by clearing his throat loudly, “Your turn, now. “ He said, after gaining Johnnys attention back fully. 

Johnny tried to remember the questions he’d had before Ten had appeared out of the darkness, but could barely even remember the ones he’d asked earlier. He tried to remember why he’d been so angry. He shook that idea from his brain, “Why do you call me John?” He asked, letting the first thing that popped into his head fall out of his mouth. 

“I like John better. Cause Johnny sounds like an old man from a 1970s sitcom who drinks too much.” Ten deadpanned. 

“Hey!” Johnny replied in mock anger, trying and failing to keep himself from laughing, “You can’t talk, your name is a fucking number!” He shot back. 

Ten hesitated for a terrifying second in which Johnny was half sure Ten was about to turn around and sucker punch him in the face, but instead started to laugh in a way that Johnny never expected him to, it seemed to fill his whole body and bubble out like a volcano, “At least least I’m not the ring of fire dude!” Ten said between giggles. 

“Did you just compare me to Johnny Cash?” Johnny asked pretending to be genuinely offended, feeling immensely proud at making Ten laugh this much, which was something he wasn’t going to be thinking about. 

“Ring of fire… Ring of fire…” Ten sang in a low exaggerated twangy accent, as he started to calm himself down, rubbing his eyes as if to clear tears, he was still laughing when he rolled his eyes at himself and said, “God. Okay. That was a bad question, I’ll let you have another one.” 

“How charitable,” Johnny responded, wondering what constituted as a bad question in Tens eyes. He paused to think and then spoke, “Why’d you come to Korea?” He asked. He was still surprised at his sudden turn down small talk lane. 

Ten paused and lit another cigarette. He lit one every 5 minutes, but Johnny never seemed to recall seeing them after they were light, only a choice few reappeared to be stubbed out, “Well, uh, if you’re expecting a dramatic sob story, like, I was bullied, or my parents forced me out so I ran away, prepare to be disappointed,” He warned. The sudden change of mood made Johnnys skin crawl, “It was just a… change of scenery, I guess, change of people. Plus Korea’s always seemed kinda cool to me, but honestly it’s less shiny and dreamy than I thought, last weekend a guy puked on me at Gangnam station, so that’s cool, I guess.” He finished, smiling a little bit and looking thoughtful, like he was having some deep mental conversation Johnny couldn’t be a part of. 

“Oh.” Johnny responded. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. Well he could, just nothing he could bring himself to. 

Ten looked at him, and smiled bigger, “Oh.” He repeated. 

Johnny couldn’t stand the way Ten was looking at him, he couldn’t stand the serious sad vibe the conversation had taken. It made him want to claw his skin off in a way he couldn’t possibly explain, “Your turn.” He offered as a hopeful attempt to rid the ambience of this awful fake deep sort of indie movie feeling. 

It seemed to break the spell and Ten jolted, almost like something surprised him, grinned his usual shit eating grin of anticipation, and half opened his mouth to ask a question, before seeming to think better of it and closing it again. His plotting face replaced with one of thought. Johnny was almost grateful he’d switched his mind from whatever terrible no doubt horrifically personal and invasive question he was leaning toward, but also slightly disappointed. Ten hummed loudly and stuck his tongue out between his teeth. Johnny would’ve been annoyed if he was so caught up in the suspense. Maybe. Maybe he wouldn’t have been, “Okay.” Ten said, no doubt gone through every section of his brain to find the worst question he could ask, smirking like he’d cracked the code of the entire workings of the planet, “What’s your favourite colour?” He asked, anticlimactically. 

Johnny almost laughed at the simplicity, “You asked me that last time,” He pointed out. 

“But I don’t remember,” Ten argued. 

“Red, Ten.” Johnny responded, smiling, no doubt, like an idiot, “Nothings changed.” He had been expecting the worst, and had been pleasantly… 

Oh. Wait. No.  

Ten had stood up from the couch and was talking toward his discarded bike, holding back the smuggest little smile Johnny could imagine, and for Ten that was saying something. 

“Blue. My favourite colour is blue.” Johnny corrected himself, not sure what had happened, not sure where Ten was going, not sure why Ten had asked. 

“I know.” Ten replied agreeably, he picked up his bike and picked it up over his left shoulder easily, he was still smiling. Johnny felt sick. He turned back to Johnny and nodded once, “I should go. But text me tomorrow.” He instructed, starting to walk back up the hill. 

“My favourite colour is blue, Ten!” Johnny called after him, standing up gracelessly from the rocks, almost falling completely over into the river, “My favourite colour is blue, okay?” 

There was no response. Ten had left Johnny alone. With his thoughts. Who were the main people Johnny had opted to avoid this summer. 

“I like blue.” Johnny said out loud. To no one. 

_ ‘Who are you trying to convince?’ _ His mind asked. 

“No one.” Johnny replied, out loud, again. 

There was no response. Even his brain had left Johnny under the bridge. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hee hee hee hee  
> what does it mean? what does any of it mean? idk but we'll find out oh oh oh hoh ho  
> FUN DRINKING GAME if u go back and read the last chap take a shot everytime i mention the colour red, depending on ur tolerance u'll either be kinda drunk or completely sober, lets find out!   
> also u ppl saying my characterization is good make me feel so special its literally not at all , but than q


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its 3 am   
> idk   
> thats all i have to add here

“Are you even listening to me?” 

“Yes.” Johnny replied, looking up quicker than he should’ve. He was lying, he hadn’t heard a word said in the last 10 minutes and had opted out of Doyoungs rant about how complicated the college application procedure was for instead closely observing a mother interacting with her baby on the other side of the cafe. 

“You were not,” Doyoung whined, leaning back from the table and kicking his legs out toward Johnny.

“Sorry. I was just thinking about… something Mark said yesterday.” Another lie. Wasn’t even really sure why. 

Doyoung rolled his eyes dramatically, “God, I’m praying for whatever poor sucker finally decides to give you a chance and dates you, she’ll have to deal with third wheeling you and Minhyung, until you inevitably break up, so you and he can be wed on a beach on Jeju.” 

Johnny opened his mouth to shoot back an insult about his new haircut, or something similar, but decided against it and decided to take a sip of his iced coffee instead. 

“Whats with you, man?” Doyoung questioned, raising an eyebrow. 

“What?” Johnny asked sounding genuinely confused, he was sure he knew exactly what Doyoung was talking about but played dumb anyways, Doyoung made it easy. 

“Lately you’ve been weird,” Doyoung shrugged, “You haven’t tried to hang out at all, and when we do you just kinda stare off. Wait... are you on drugs or something?” 

Johnny shook his head with a small laugh, looking down at his iced coffee as if it was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen, “I’m not on drugs, I’m just a little spacey, okay?” He replied, picking at the sticker on the cup with his thumb nail. 

Doyoung paused like he was waiting for more but then nodded slightly and continued talking, “Sorry your tutoring didn’t work out, man. Really thought it would.” He half frowned and looked apologetic in a barely genuine sort of way. Johnny didn’t mind. He had nothing to apologize for.

“No big deal.” Johnny said honestly. It honestly wasn’t. He barely had any interest in it at all anymore, probably never really did. 

“So what’s next on the schedule of Mr. Johnny Seo?” Doyoung asked, grinning in expectation. 

“I don’t really know.” Johnny admitted, still staring at his coffee. 

“Ah, no way. Don’t believe it.” Doyoung chided, slapping Johnny on the elbow playfully, “You’ve been planning your wedding since you were 4 years old, you’ve wanted to go to the same college since you were 8, no way you’re winging it all now.” 

Johnny shrugged, “I still want to go to college, but I don’t know when or even what to take.” He spoke the fears he’d been harbouring in his head for a couple weeks.

Doyoung laughed aimlessly and rubbed a hand across his face, “I told you man, you’re being weird,” 

Johnny paused to think about it. He supposed he was. He barely had a basis of what normal for him was to compare to though. As he was thinking, he just so happened to see a motion out of the corner of his eye, and turned to glance out the window to find himself watching a person running at full speed past the side of the cafe, holding a black bag, and laughing loudly. He didn’t even have to see his face to know who it was, “Sorry I gotta go,” Johnny deadpanned, shifting his chair back to stand up and tossing some cash on the table, definitely more than what his coffee was worth,  “I’ll see you later dude.” He waved vaguely toward his friend. 

“What? Johnny where are you…? If I said something then I’--” Doyoungs voice was cut off as Johnny closed the door behind him, replaced with the sound of traffic and birds nesting above his head. 

Before he had a chance to think about what he was doing, he was running as fast as his legs could carry him in a direct bee line after the slowly disappearing figure, who was only visible by the top of his head, bobbing in and out of the crowd of people. Johnny was honestly never really a fast runner, but something about now, something about this situation in general made him fly at what he believed, in that moment, to be the speed of light. 

Ten cut off into an alley ahead, shooting a glance back from where he came from but clearly not seeing Johnny as he ducked his head down and sped out of sight. Johnny swerved into the alley a few minutes after him, following suite with the glance over his shoulder. He didn’t see anyone who could have been following Ten, but based on past experience, didn’t doubt it for a moment. When he turned his eyes back into the alley, Ten was gone. It was a dead end, with nothing but a few dumpsters and garbage cans slumped against the brick walls of the old bar and the hair salon it ran between. 

“Where did…” Johnny asked himself, quietly, the adrenaline of the chase dying down. He was half a second away from hyperventilating, his lungs felt like they were throwing themselves at his throat, begging to be released. He did a complete 360 of the urine stained pavement. There was no way. Maybe he’d completely imagined Ten. God he must’ve looked like an idiot, racing down the street like that. 

“What the fuck?” A voice spoke from above his head, proving his fears false. Johnny looked up to see Ten himself hanging off of a unstable and rickety looking fire escape, looking surprised and annoyed, holding a large black backpack with the strap hanging from between his teeth. He looked out toward the bustling street and then back at Johnny, eyes flaring, “What are you doing?” He demanded, swaying back and forth precariously. 

“What do you mean?” Johnny was confused by the response, he was expecting Ten to laugh or tease him or something else, not get mad, anything but get mad. 

“I mean what I said. What are you doing?” Ten repeated, shifting down the ladder to lower himself gingerly onto the dumpster, “What about me running down a street suggests I really want to meet up and chat right now?” He ran a hand through his hair anxiously, glanced back out at the street and started to inspect the backpack. 

“I don’t know,” Johnny admitted, feeling guilty. He honestly didn’t know what had come over him, something had made sense in the moment. 

“You could’ve fucked this whole thing up, John, if I had gotten caught because of you…” Ten spat, trailing off as he unzipped the smaller pocket and started digging through the contents. 

“But you didn’t.” Johnny pointed out quietly. 

“But I could’ve.” Ten replied, shortly, standing up quickly and swinging the backpack over his shoulder, “Didn’t. But could’ve.” He stared at Johnny. If looks could kill. Johnny finally understood that phrase. 

“Sorry.” Johnny offered lamely.  

Ten looked up at him and twisted his mouth up in thought for a half a second and then he shrugged, “No need to apologize.” He replied, staring back out at the entrance of the alley like he expected someone to come charging in at any moment, “You didn’t do anything.” 

Johnny nodded, “Okay.” He said. Ten was physically much smaller than him, but somehow always made him feel small. Like a little kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. 

Ten gave a tight smile and started back out on the street with his shoulders hunched down low, only to nearly run head first into an angry looking foreigner, some tall white guy with shoulders broader than the other boy probably was tall. Ten attempted to slip past the guy without a second glance, but he wasn’t as lucky this time as the guy, without a moments hesitation, reached out a massive arm to block his path.

“That’s my bag.” The guy said, in broken and forced Korean. 

Ten tried to push his arm away, but the man just held him in tighter, Ten dropped his shoulders lower down to the ground, gave his best scared expression and said something in a language Johnny could barely identify. He knew he’d heard it somewhere, but wasn’t sure where. Ten was moving his arms around, like he was trying to explain himself to the best of his ability but couldn’t, because of some sort of make believe language barrier. 

The guy looked between Ten and Johnny, who stood awkwardly next to the fire escape still, trying to blend into the wall, “Do you speak Korean?” He asked, nodding toward Johnny, “English, maybe?”

Johnny swallowed a lump he didn’t know had formed in his throat and scourged up as much residue of information he could from his many years in public school and replied, his voice almost breaking with every word, “Je.. suis désolée, tu peux parle en francais? Je… ne pas parle.. et Je ne sais pas… Quoi vous… parlez.” He hoped he sounded convincing, he’d failed French class, and had never cared to actually bother learning in the first place, but if by any luck this man didn’t speak a word of French, maybe he could pull this off. 

Tens shoulders tensed visibly, still held in place by the buff man, and he moved his wrist slightly, in a way that could’ve been accidental, or completely unrelated to anything else. But Johnny chose to believe was Tens way of saying “Nice one”. 

“Give me my bag,” The guy didn’t seem to give Johnny a second thought after his horrific display of whatever language he was pretending to know, which definitely couldn’t be considered French, turning back to Ten in a swift motion and leaning in, putting his face far too close to Tens own for comfort. The man hesitated for a second and then said something Johnny definitely recognized. The man was trying to speak Chinese now. Johnny held back a greatly inappropriate laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation, and instead tried to maintain a look of confusion and distress. 

Ten took a step back, looking up at him with his head at almost a full 360 degrees, probably trying to emphasize the height difference, which was a smart move, “I… I am, sorry, I do not know of what you are saying.” Ten said in heavily accented English, that made Johnny almost beam with pride. God, he was good. 

The man didn’t look to be taking one bit of Tens oscar worthy acting performance, and instead lunged down toward the bag, trying to wrestle it out of Tens grip. Ten looked ultimately unbothered and turned to Johnny with a wild look in his eyes. Before Johnny knew what was happening, the black backpack was sailing through the air in a perfect arc, landing just in front of his feet. The mans head whipped up and he started to stand back up, but was intercepted by Ten leaping onto his back and toppling him back over, Ten sat up on the man’s back, legs wrapped around his waist, and started to wave wildly for Johnny to move and move now. So Johnny did. He raced through the alley and down the road, winding and twisting between the lethargic tourists like, at least what he thought during that moment he was like, the wind blowing through an old growth forest. He heard a yell of unmistakable fury behind him, but didn’t look back. One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other. He turned on a dime and barreled down a street even busier than the last, if that was possible. He ducked in and out of crowds, gaining nothing more than a few glances or questioning looks that grew bored within seconds and turned back to conversation. 

He threw himself into a random doorway without reading the signs, the door flew open with a ding and he found himself standing, out of breath, holding a strangers backpack, in the middle of a 7-11. 

“Dude.” 

Of course, it also just happened to be the one Taeyong worked at. Johnny looked at him gratefully and without a second thought, sped walk behind the counter like it was the most casual thing in the world and ducked down, shoving the bag into the first cabinet without a lock, and sat directly below Taeyong, trying to calm his breathing. 

“Um?” Taeyong tapped his head, trying to get his attention. He still had the magazine he’d been reading open on his lap, “Can I help you Mr. Seo?” He asked, with faux politeness. 

“You already did.” Johnny responded honestly, lifting up the hair that fell over his forehead in an attempt to dry his sweat. It didn’t work. 

“Okay, weirdo.” Taeyong said agreeably, pulling the wrapper off a bright green lolly pop and sticking it in his mouth, “Can I ask why you’re violating the rules of my boss by sitting behind the counter during working hours without asking, which, by the way, I’ve already gotten written up twice for, after running into my store at full speed at,” He checked his watch, “1:21 pm, holding the biggest backpack I’ve ever seen, which I can not say I believe belongs to you?” 

“No.” Johnny replied, looking up at him with quarter closed eyes, “You owe me one. Remember in December when I saw you--” 

Taeyong cut him off with a loud shush, glancing nervously around the store as if anyone was possibly there to overhear them, “Fine. Fine. Dickhead.” He scoffed, turning back to his magazine with newfound disinterest.    
“You also owe me one from the time I found your entire collecti--”

“JOHNNY!” Taeyong cut him off again, whacking the top of his head with a paper fan, “What part of don’t talk about it, do you not understand?” 

Johnny laughed breathily, and ran a hand through his hair, “Yeah. Okay. Just, if anyone comes in, pretend I’m not here, okay?” 

“Whatever,” Taeyong mumbled, turning his back to Johnny completely, pretending to be far more engrossed in whatever stupid article he was reading than he was. 

Johnnys phone vibrated against his thigh and he froze. Some part of his brain was confident it was the police. Somehow they’d found him. He pulled it out slowly. But it wasn’t. 

 

**Ten (1:24 pm)**

**\--Where are you?**

 

**To: Ten (1:24 pm)**

**\--How am I supposed to know this isn’t someone trying to infiltrate our business?**

 

He chuckled quietly at his text back, Taeyong muttered something about “Go laugh on your own fucking property,” 

 

**Ten (1:25 pm)**

**\--Would a spy know you have 23 stuffies on your bed and poster of fucking Ke$ha inside your closet?**

 

Johnny held back a louder laugh at this, glancing anxiously at Taeyong, who stuck up his middle finger and ignored him. 

 

**To: Ten (1:25 pm)**

**\--I don’t know, maybe.**

**To: Ten (1:26 pm)**

**\--I’m at the 7-11 facing the park. 2 blocks away from where I left you.**

 

There wasn’t a response for a few minutes, Johnny hoped it meant he was on his way. A few minutes later, when the door swung open, the bell echoing through the store, and Ten asked, “Johnny?” Johnny suddenly remembered something very entirely important. 

“No.” Taeyong replied, sounding bored. 

“Oh.” Ten responded, his footsteps were gradually getting closer. Neither of them had realized. Johnny was sending urgent warnings mentally, but no one seemed to notice. 

Taeyong glanced down at Johnny and quirked an eyebrow. 

Johnny shrugged. 

The top half Tens face appeared over the counter, eyebrows furrowed, he looked less than surprised to find him there, “Hey.” He greeted, casually, his eyebrow was bleeding, and the beginning of a bruise was forming on his cheek. He looked up to the other boy sat behind the counter and his face clouded with recognition, “Oh.” He noted, his mood unreadable. 

Taeyong flicked his gaze toward Ten for a second, completely uninterested, and then looked back at his magazine. Pause. Back at Ten, “Oh.” He echoed, mood upsetting clear. 

“Guys.” Johnny warned, standing up slowly, reaching his arms out as if he could soften the tension with body language.    
“This guy harassing you, Johnny?” Taeyong demanded, clearly misreading the situation. 

“No, I--” Johnny started, why couldn’t he have remembered? He could’ve gone into any fucking business but nope, of course it had to be this one. Because nothing in Johnnys life had ever worked out. 

Ten said nothing, smiling smugly, looking between the two of them. Johnny wanted to slap him in the face and scream at him to stop. There was no way this could end well. Ten so hopelessly irritating, Taeyong so hopelessly irritable, Johnny so hopelessly avoidant. It was a disaster waiting to happen. 

Taeyong was standing too now, staring expectantly at Johnny, “Was he the one who was chasing you? That’s why you came in here like that, huh?” He asked, doing his classic fake macho thing that drove Johnny crazy, he laughed bitterly, “He’s not that tough, crumples like paper as soon as you try anything.” He fixed his glare on Ten now. 

Johnny found himself hissing out translations in English, he did not want to get involved in the slightest, but it didn’t feel fair for whatever reason. Taeyong barely seemed to notice, anyways. 

Ten yawned, “I let you win,” He replied, smirking. He knew exactly what he was doing. Johnny started to translate but realized Taeyong probably understood enough English to comprehend well enough, and would likely get offended if Johnny even tried. 

“Stop it. Both of you.” Johnny said, trying to act as mediator, but was completely ignored by both parties. 

It was too late anyways, Taeyong had, at some point without Johnny really noticing, flung his entire body over the counter, knocking Ten over onto the tile floor with a loud grunt. They quickly became a mess of flailing limbs, knocking over packets of gum and lighters from convenience racks next to the cash register.  

“Stop!” Johnny yelled, following suite and crashing down onto the ground with much less grace, trying to pull them apart, pressing his legs onto Tens chest as he pulled back Taeyong’s dominant hand, hoping to at least distract them, if nothing else. 

“I don’t need you to defend me, John!” Ten almost screamed, kicking a leg in his general direction, not aimed to hurt, just to discourage. 

“I know!” Johnny responded, in an equally loud tone, trying to shove his body between the others, “Doesn’t mean I’m not going to!” He said with a grunt, finally successfully pulling Taeyong off him, leaving the two of them laying back down on the ground, looking like turtles that had been flipped over by cruel middle schoolers. 

Taeyong pushed Johnny off, he would be looking almost embarrassed, if he didn’t look so angry. He stood up shakily, eyes on fire, “Get out.” He shouted, knocking over another entire row of gum as he did. 

Ten hopped up, like it was not even the slightest deal that he’d been beaten up in a 7-11, “Nice meeting you again,” He said, in perfect textbook Korean. He turned to leave, reaching out to clear a shelf of neatly stocked bags of chips, sending them tumbling to the floor.

Johnny shot Taeyong a helpless look, Taeyong returned it with a grimace and turned his back on the both of them, starting to pick up the dislodged merchandise. Johnny gave him another apologetic shrug that he couldn’t see but felt required anyways, and then turned to trail after Ten out of the store. 

“You were great today, with the French. Good on your feet.” Was the first thing Ten said when Johnny joined him sitting on the curb. 

“Your lip is bleeding,” Johnny replied, ignoring Tens complement entirely and fishing around in his satchel for some off brand tissues, “Here.” He pushed Tens own hand off of his face and started to dab at the wound with the tip of one. 

“Thanks.” Ten sounded ashamed. They sat in silence like this for a few seconds until Ten sighed loudly and continued talking, “I don’t know why I make people so angry all the time.” He said, with an edge of truthfulness to his voice that made Johnny uncomfortable. 

“I have some theories.” Johnny responded, motioning for Ten to stop moving as he pressed a finger into the forming bruise on his cheek, “This hurt?” 

“Yes. Ow. Ass.” Ten complained, whacking Johnnys hand away. 

“You’re the ass.” Johnny replied, “I’m not the one getting in a fist fight in 7-11.”

“That was entirely your fault, sir. If I didn’t know you and your barely functioning brain better, I’d think it was all a set-up.” Ten reminded him, touching the side of his head with a pained expression, he pulled his hand away with drops of blood on his finger tips, “This blood strike you as from a natural response to an unjustified thievery related injury, or an accidentally existing in the same place as someone who doesn’t like me related injury?” He asked innocently, rubbing the blood off onto his jeans.

“It was more than that and you know it.” Johnny spoke up, shutting him down completely. 

Ten shrugged, “Can’t help having a punchable face.” He pushed Johnny away from him once and for all, muttering something about healing quicker than a vampire. 

“I still haven’t punched you, so that clearly can’t be it.” Johnny responded. 

Ten looked at him, smiled, wincing a bit no doubt because of his lip, and nodded softly, “Yeah. I guess you haven’t.” 

“One day I will.” Johnny warned. 

“One day.” Ten agreed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hate being That Bitch but if u like/dont completely hate this leaving reviews would actually brighten my whole dam day a lot & encourage me to write more!   
> & im on holiday from work for the next 2 and a half weeks so there will probably be   
> quite a few   
> chapters   
> coming your way  
> stay tuned


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay i was gonna add more but i gotta go the fuck to bed yall im so tired so HERE  
> WHATEVER!  
> (also disclaimer: this is an au, so the way i characterize ppl in this doesn't reflect how i actually view them in rl. this is entirely about taeyong. i kno that guys a sweety dont worry.)

Johnny woke up, feeling dazed. He reached his hands out on either side of him to feel the mattress next to him, confirming that this was indeed reality. He smiled up at the ceiling, an inexplicable feeling raced through his chest, sending static through his arms and fingertips. All that came crashing down when he glanced at his phone to check the time, and noticed he had 4 texts, 2 missed calls and a voicemail from his old friend Lee Taeyong. He clicked on the voicemail notification with a delayed sigh and held it up to his ear, squeezing his eyes closed in anticipation. 

“Johnny. How’s it going? I’m good. I got fired from my job this morning. That’s pretty cool. Also, you know the backpack you left here?” There was a pause and a soft thud in the background, as if Taeyong had kicked the aforementioned bag, “The one you forgot about when you were busy playing nurse with that delinquent who is responsible for the biggest black eye I’ve ever had, you know the one? It was reported missing, yeah! I know! Apparently before it was yours it belonged to an internationally famous Canadian basketball player. Listen I don’t know what you are doing right now, but Joh--”

Johnny clicked his phone off, desperately not wanting to hear the end of that sentence. He tossed his phone across his room onto the pile of clothes by his front door in anger that was not severe enough, apparently, to actually break it. He sat up in bed and rubbed the back of his head, half closing an eye. He wasn’t sure what to do in this situation. Warn Ten? But would he care? Call Taeyong and beg for him not to give the bag up to the police? But would Taeyong even listen? Johnny sighed and let his head drop forward onto his knees. The guy’d seen his face. There was no way this could end well for anyone. But honestly, Johnny couldn’t bring himself to care as much as he used to. He knew Ten would get them both out of this. Ten would always find a way to not get caught. 

On that note, Johnny slid out of bed and picked up his phone from where he’d thrown it, ignoring the urgent looking texts from Taeyong and instead opening Tens contact. He pressed call and lifted the phone to his face. It rang once, twice, three times, four times, five times, six times, seven times. 

“Ten.” Ten said, sounding annoyed. 

“What?” Johnny asked, confused by his tone of voice more than him answering the phone with his own name. 

_ Beeeeeeep.  _ Oh.

“Uh, that was a stupid fucking voicemail,” Johnny greeted, feeling awkward suddenly, he sat down on his floor and leaned his head back against his closet, staring up at the ceiling, “Uh, well, we should probably meet up, I guess. I don’t know. I’m maybe a little freaked out? You probably know why already, though.” He laughed quietly. It sounded forced even to him, “Call me back or… text me. Or whatever.” An automated voice started telling him about his options and what numbered key on his phone they related to before he’d finished his last sentence. Johnny hung up and sighed. He pulled up Taeyongs texts finally, and read them through half closed eyes, holding the phone up so he could see it properly with his head 45 degrees back. 

**Taeyong (7:34 am)**

**\--I just got fired**

**Taeyong (7:35 am)** **  
** **\--I think you may have some explaining to do.**

**Taeyong (7:49 am)**

**\--I have your stupid backpack.**

**Taeyong (8:04 am)** **  
** **\--How the fuck did you know that kid anyways?**

 

Johnny dropped his phone, letting it fall down onto the carpeted floor with a soft thud. He rubbed his forehead. He was suddenly extremely tired. The events of yesterday still hadn’t processed properly, he couldn’t, in that moment, tell you honestly it hadn’t all been a dream. He pulled himself off the floor and tumbled back into bed, partially pulling his blanket around him, so it barely covered his torso and left his calves sticking out like two pretzels sticking out of a birthday cake. He wasn’t good at metaphors when he was tired apparently. Things will look better with a little sleep, he decided. 

He dreamt he was in Chicago, and the city was overrun with wolves with human faces. All of them looked like Mark. A man in a red suit was trying to herd them around the city with a comically large shepherd's staff. Johnny felt his particles combining with the cold wind. The wolves were leaping up toward him. Marks face had gone, and they were left with paper plates pressed against their fur, as if they were wearing masks. The world was fading away, he was pretty sure he’d reached the city limits. A weird cousin he met once was standing there to greet him, looking a little too enthusiastic, his 10 year old face was stretched out to fit the 23 year olds boy. Johnny hadn’t seen him since, so he couldn’t imagine his face now. 

Johnny opened his eyes with a jolt. What kinda fucking symbolism. 

\--  

“Coffee?” Johnnys mum offered, jutting a chipped light red mug that she’d made in pottery glass when she was in highschool in front of his face. It barely worked, but it made her so happy when anyone used it. So he would say it was his favourite. The paint job looked like watery blood. 

“Thanks.” Johnny nodded, taking it from her with a small smile. He had been refreshing his phone every couple seconds, waiting for new notifications, but nothing came except for spam emails and warnings about his college application expiring.  

“Whose text are you waiting for?” His mum asked, peeking down at his phone before he could hide it away. 

“No one, I’m just bored,” Johnny responded quietly, taking a sip of his coffee and only slightly wincing at the scalding liquid. He was honestly barely sure himself. Logically, Ten. But knowing Ten it could be hours or days before he heard back. Watched pot never boils, or whatever cheesy shit Doyoung would tell him whenever they were making pasta. 

“Bored? How can you be bored?” She exclaimed good naturedly, pulling out the chair next to him and studying his face, “So who is it?” She asked, putting her face between her palms and grinning.

“What?” He asked, trying to convey with just facial expressions alone how much he did not want to be having this, or any, conversation right now, “I’m just waiting for my friend to wake up, okay?” 

His mum squinted at the small clock on the top of his screen and then back at his face, “Its 2 pm! Who is asleep at 2 pm?” 

“He is, apparently.” Johnny replied, dropping his chin to the kitchen table with a sigh. His back hurt already from slouching over like that but he made no effort to move. 

His mum put a hand on his head and patted it awkwardly. His family had never been great at the whole ‘physical affection’ thing, if you couldn’t already tell by Johnnys entire personality, “Did you hear back from the school you applied to?” She asked, she meant well, but the question felt like a punch in the face for Johnny. 

“No,” He replied. Actually he had, the school had emailed him back about a week ago, all daisies and sunshine, eager to meet with him at the earliest available convenience. He’d freaked out, and deleted the email. Couldn’t tell you why. He never had really cared about that college, but he felt like it was the path he was supposed to follow so he’d applied, all his friends were, so of course he was going to too. He had spent a few hours leafing through the possible courses, choosing ones that sounded professional and would likely make him money, without really stopping to think about it, thinking about what he even wanted.

“I’m sure you’ll hear back soon,” She offered as a way of comfort, clearly mistaking Johnnys current mood for discouragement about the faux late response. 

Johnny nodded, “I know.” He pushed himself off the table and shook his head, removing his mother's hand in the process. He stood up, pushing the chair away with the back of his knees and picked up the half full cup of coffee to take back to his room. 

“You can talk to me about anything!” She called after him. 

“I know!” He repeated, pausing on the stairs to turn vaguely back toward the kitchen for a second before finishing the climb and closing his bedroom door behind him with his hip. He didn’t understand why people kept acting like this around him. Seemed like everyone thought he was being weird, or sad, or was acting like they had to walk on broken glass around him. Well. Mostly just Doyoung and his mum, maybe. Taeyong was almost too far in the opposite direction. And Ten… Well, Ten was… Something else entirely. 

Johnny picked up his phone again, barely expecting to see any new messages, but was still disappointed when there weren’t any. He felt like a middle schooler waiting for the cool kid in class to text him back, even though the cool kid was just using him for homework help. Was Ten using him? Johnny pondered for a second, staring out the window at the streets, watching cars drive by. He didn’t know anymore. 

He decided then that Tens combination of numbers was unlucky, so he punched a different number into his phone and flopped over onto his bed while it rang. 

“Hello?” Mark answered. 

“Hey, whats up?” Johnny asked, hoping for some normal conversation for a change. 

“Oh! Hey Johnny. Not much.” Mark replied, he hesitated for a second then added, “You okay?” There were some voices in the background, but Johnny couldn’t recognize them. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Johnny responded with a bit more bite in his voice than he meant to, he winced at himself, “Sorry. I’m just… sick of being asked.” He followed up, lamely. 

“Heard you got front row seats to the second round of Taeyongs epic fight.” Mark joked, barely seeming to notice how Johnny had reacted. 

“If you could even call it that,” Johnny laughed slightly, swinging his legs back and forth so they quietly thumped against his boxspring, “It was like… 3 punches before I stopped it,” Suddenly he realized how long it had been since he’d talked like this, casually, without any ulterior motives. 

“3 punches?” Mark asked incredulously, “Well someone better tell Taeyong that, cause he seems to think differently,”

“What do you mean?” Johnny was taken aback for a second, what could Taeyong possibly be saying that wasn’t true?

“Have you talked to him yet today?” Mark asked, pausing for a second to say something to someone in the background.

“No. Well. He kinda… talked at me, I guess,” Johnny admitted, with a shrug, “Left a very angry voicemail on my phone this morning.” 

“Yeah.” Mark said agreeably, “He’s not happy.” 

“What did he say?” Johnny demanded, hating how conversational Mark was, it always took him 4 hours to get any information out.

“Uh, said it was the same guy as last time, when I called you from the park, remember?” Mark questioned, Johnny was suddenly aware that that was as much information as Mark thought he knew, “And that uh… You led him there to beat up Taeyong, and you were telling him what to do, like in the fight and stuff, and then he beat the shit out of Taeyong and you left with him and were buddy buddy, and something about a backpack Canada, and sports? He seemed like it was incredibly relevant I knew it related to Canada, without actually telling me what it was, he’s a weird guy,” Mark kept talking as if the stuff he had just said wasn’t actively pushing Johnnys brain into a paper shredder, “Something about the mafia, I think,” 

“What.” Johnny said. It was a statement, not a question. Taeyong said that? But Johnny didn’t… And Ten definitely didn’t… The mafia?.. And Johnny didn’t even… Well, he kind of did, but translating is hardly the same as helping, and… he did leave with him, and… Johnny groaned. Of course it looked fishy. How could it not? What would he think in that situation if it were Taeyong and a stranger? 

“I mean I didn’t believe him. He has a tendency to get over dramatic.” Mark replied, still unaware of Johnnys current mental state, acting like it was the most casual brunch chat ever, “But I thought I’d ask you about it, you know?” 

Johnny didn’t know how to say that approximately half of what Taeyong said was completely true, so he said nothing. 

“And it doesn’t seem like you at all.” Mark added, obviously. Which was the single last thing Johnny needed to hear right now, “Thats what I told him, I said like ‘If Johnny was living a secret second life of criminal activity there’s no way we wouldn’t know, he’s the least subtle person alive.’” Mark was joking, but it didn’t feel like it. Johnnys stomach felt like it was swelling up, pressing against his organs and the lining of his stomach. Gross, he thought, at his own description. 

“He was right.” Johnny said simply. The back of his throat tasted sour. He was worried if he tried to say anything else he would throw up. Johnny wasn’t completely lying. Ten hadn’t beaten Taeyong up, barely even gotten a punch in, and Johnny didn’t lead Ten there in the first place, but that was just splitting hairs. 

“What?” Mark asked, sounding like he just genuinely didn’t hear him. 

“He was right,” Johnny repeated, louder. 

“What do you mean?” Mark still didn’t understand, “Joh--”

But Johnny had already hung up. He dropped his phone aimlessly next to him and stared up at the ceiling. His brain was silent and screaming at the same time. He had, it seemed, potentially just thrown the last remaining genuine friendship he had out the window. Well, at least he wasn’t being predictable, right? At least he wasn’t the least subtle person alive now. At least he wasn’t obsessed with his future, planning every perfect thing to its last perfect detail. At least he felt actual genuine anger. There was another ‘at least’ missing from the list, but he didn’t dare add it. Not yet, at least.  

He stared over at his phone. He reached over and picked it up again, staring at the voicemail icon. Half wanting to hear the rest of Taeyongs speech. He stared at it for a moment more, and then pressed delete with barely a second thought. Before he had a chance to have that aforementioned second thought, he’d pulled himself out of bed, put his shoes on, and gotten behind the drivers seat of his car. Somewhere between the beginning of the second thought and the end of the third one he’d already driven all the way to Ten’s bridge. 

The fourth thought was this: What was he really expecting to find?    
The fifth thought was this: Did he really say that to Mark?   
He let himself out of the car and walked away, leaving the door slightly ajar as he went. He felt like he was in a daze still, same one from this morning, maybe. He hopped down the small path and jumped down onto the rocks, taking a deep breath before he pushed back the tarp. Only to find the fort completely empty. There weren’t even any butts in the ashtray. The sixth thought was the same as the fourth. What had he been expecting. 

He sat down on the couch anyways, ignoring the amount of stains and grime doubled once he sat, apparently only visible from this distance. He was watching the suns reflection on the river move. He wished he had pastels. Also, wished he knew how to draw with pastels. He was so focused, thinking about pastels, that he didn’t even notice the approaching figure until it spoke.    
“John.” Ten said. Johnny looked up in surprise. Ten was standing at the other end of the room, opposite where he’d come from. Ten didn’t look at all shocked to find Johnny there. He was wearing the same shorts he had been when Johnny met him, and had a large yellow backpack on his shoulders. He started toward where Johnny sat, walking along the water's edge like he was on a tightrope. 

“Ten.” Johnny responded, looking at him with a smile he’d barely been aware had been creeping onto his face, “You’re here.”    
Ten nodded and swallowed, looking almost nervous, “Seems that way.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter is ujjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjfsdfhsdfhksjdhf gonna be aa lot boys  
> lmao ya sorry this was mostly filler idk


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i uh.................. cant decide how to feel about this chapter . it may be rewritten in like a day or so. or left like this . idk ................................ thi sis garbage im sorry im a HO for angst always.  
> i'm calling it chapter 8.5 cause it kinda is. debate will be a chapter 8.75, we'll see  
> also idk if yall care but the title of this fic is from the counting crows song of the same name, it barely has a thing to do with the fic but somehow i thought it fit so ... (shrug emoji）

“Decided black bags weren’t cool enough anymore?” Johnny joked, gesturing toward the Tens huge yellow bag. 

Ten face relaxed into a smile and he exhaled through his nose, not fully committing to the laugh. He gave Johnny a quizzical look, his head tilted back slightly, “What are you doing here?” He asked.

“You weren’t answering your phone.” Johnny explained, he didn’t dare say anything more because he knew all it would do is make it seem like he was a totally creepy stalker. Which he wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t, at this point. 

“So you came here?” Ten pulled his backpack off his back and dropped it down onto the rocks, he almost moved to sit down next to Johnny but seemed to stop himself, teetering awkwardly on uneven rocks.    
“Apparently.” Johnny said, there was a weird and unpleasant vibe in the air that Johnny couldn’t identify. 

“Cool.” Ten nodded. 

There was a silence. 

“Taeyong is telling everyone that you beat him up, by the way,” Johnny offered, “Also he has the backpack, and I doubt he’s planning to give it back anytime soon.” 

Ten nodded again, “Yeah, figured.” He paused and kneeled down onto the rocks, grinning, “Your friend is kinda a dick, man.” 

Johnny laughed, “I know.” He replied. 

There was another silence. Johnny felt he should wake for Ten to break it this time, but felt he if he waited, it might never end. 

“Whats with the bag?” Johnny asked, as conversationally as he could muster, raising his eyebrows for effect. 

Ten looked at it and shrugged, “Had a lot of stuff to carry.” He replied weakly, “Heard this is what the kids are using these days,” He clearly didn’t want Johnny to ask anymore questions, but Johnny’s curiosity was not so easily subdued. 

“What kind of stuff?” 

Ten looked up at Johnny and gave a weird sort of sad smile, “Clothes, mostly. Laptop. You know, the usual.” He ran a hand through his hair. 

“Why?” Johnny asked, trying to keep the air of desperation out of his voice. Ten wasn’t.... Was he?

“Jesus John, what’s with all the questions?” Ten laughed, picking up a small stick from the ground and using it to dig into the mud, pointedly avoiding any eye contact. 

“Where are you going?” Johnny demanded, failing to keep the aforementioned desperation out of his voice. 

Ten dropped the stick and sighed. Still not looking at Johnny, he responded, “Anywhere but here, I guess.” 

Johnny felt his stomach drop past his feet this time, and directly into the core of the earth, “Where?” He asked, voice quivering slightly in the most annoying way possible. He wanted to punch himself in the face. 

“I don’t know,” Ten admitted, making a noncommittal face, he picked up the stick again and continued to dig into the earth. Maybe he’d find Johnnys stomach down there, “America. Maybe. China seems cool.”

“You can’t leave.” Johnny insisted, standing up slowly from the couch like he was in a slow motion action scene. Or maybe one of the scenes in the doctor shows when the doctor tells the wife her husband is dying and she’s screaming at .25 the speed. You know the ones. Maybe you don’t. Johnny didn’t have time to care. 

“Actually,” Ten looked at him, the tone in his voice had completely changed, “I’m pretty sure that I can.” He said with a level of hostility Johnny hadn’t been expecting. 

“You can’t.” Johnny repeated, he was standing now, but didn’t exactly know what to do with his body now. Ten can’t leave. He won’t. He wouldn’t. Right?

“Why not?” Ten asked, he remained sitting, which made him glowering up at Johnny just that much more dramatic, like he had just insulted the very core of his being. Which maybe he had. 

“You just got here.” Johnny tried, and then shook his head, “This isn’t… We aren’t… You just can’t, okay? You’re the … and you’ve… You can’t leave.” He finished awkwardly, not knowing how to vocalize the thoughts racing through his head. He sounded like an idiot. 

“You can’t tell me that.” Ten deadpanned, slowly pushing himself off the rocks into a shakey standing position without breaking eye contact, “You can’t tell me that I can’t leave,” 

“Well, I am anyways.” Johnny responded evenly, staring right back at Ten. Johnny from last month wouldn’t be doing this. Johnny from last month wouldn’t have done any of this at all. Johnny from last month was as dead as anything could ever conceivably be.    
Ten looked at him up and down and sighed, his face softening slightly, “Johnny.” He started, Johnny cringed at the use of his nickname, it felt wrong coming off of Tens lips, “What did you think this was?” He asked, with an air of genuine concern that drove Johnny mad. 

“What?” Johnny replied, shortly. Now it was, apparently, his turn to get angry. 

“What did you think this was? What did you think we were?” Ten repeated, biting his lip softly, “I don’t want you to have… Thought more of it, than I did.” 

“What do you mean?” Johnny demanded, fully understanding exactly what Ten meant, but not wanting to admit it to even himself. 

“What do you think about me, right now? Be honest. Or, rather, not right now. An hour ago, maybe.” Ten asked, half laughing at his words but stifling it when he saw Johnny’s face. 

Johnny took a deep breath, and looked up toward the rumbling bridge, watching pieces of dirt and cobwebs drift down, shook loose from the passing cars, he cleared his throat and started talking before he could stop himself, “I think you’re the coolest person I’ve ever met. I think you’ve completely changed my life and I can never go back to how it used to be. I think I don’t want you. I think you leaving me right now would be the cruelest thing you could ever do.” He replied, not looking away from the top of the bridge. 

Ten sighed and buried his hands into his face, he laughed a humourless laugh and poked his eyes out to look back at Johnny, “You can’t say that.” He said, again, slightly more serious this time.

“Why not?” Johnny demanded, looking back down at Ten with flaming eyes. He would’ve hoped they looked flaming, but, right now, he couldn’t bring himself to care how comical his anger looked from the outside. 

“Because you don’t know me, John.” Ten replied almost hysterically, “You don’t know a thing about me, there is no way I could’ve changed your life, or… or… could have been the coolest person you knew.” Past tense. He was using past tense. 

Johnny paused, there was a silence for a full minute as they just stared at eachother, no motion on either side except for stressed heavy breathing, “I know you, Ten.” He stated. Every single emotion he’d felt in the last few weeks was hitting him at once. Anticipation, anxiety, anger, adrenaline, depression, confusion, joy. Well, maybe not that last one.

“No you don’t.” Ten countered, pulling his hands away from his face. “You can’t say you know me. If you know me so well, then what’s my last name? Where was I born? What’s my favourite colour? For godsakes, what language do I speak? I bet even  _ Taeyong _ could tell you that last one,” He half laughed in exasperation. 

“I could learn that stuff.” Johnny replied desperately, he was bargaining and he knew that. ‘Stages of grief.’ His mind suggested. He ignored it. This couldn’t be ending. Not now. 

“You had a chance to, but you never even bothered to. I know that stuff about you, Johnny, but you don’t know it about me. Okay? Thats the problem here, thats your problem.” Ten waved the metaphorical physical manifestation of his statement away with his hand, “You fall in love with the idea of people, okay? You think I’m some sort of mysterious, fun, unpredictable person who came into your life and was instantly completely obsessed with you in all your blue collared shirt glory, and now wants to live, what? Fucking happily ever after together? That’s not who I am. I can’t be that person.” Ten sounded on the verge of tears. Something Johnny never expected him to be on the verge of. 

Johnny paused, processing what Ten had said, and then shook his head, “You’re wrong. That’s not what I think.” He insisted. 

“Then what do you?” Ten asked, letting his arms fall flat against his sides. He stared at the ground. 

“I think you’re amazing, and I think you’re hilarious, and I think its incredible that you referenced the fucking Thief Lord when talking about committing a pretty serious crime, for fucks sake.” Johnny began, not really knowing where he was planning on ending up. He was wringing his hands out nervously, they were starting to ache, “I have more fun with you than I do anyone else, even if we’re just sitting there, even if we’re fighting. I think that the fact I might not have any other friends anymore, because I really went and fucked all that up, but don’t care as long as I have…” He trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence, he stepped forward toward Ten and cleared his throat, “Is that all for nothing?” 

Ten looked up, “Yeah, kind of.” He said, brutally honest as always. 

“What do you mean?” Johnny asked, taken aback by the simplicity and negation of his response.

Ten groaned loudly and crouched back down onto the ground, wrapping his arms around his head, he spoke between layers of fabric, his voice barely comprehensible, “That doesn’t mean anything. And I’m sorry, but its not my fault, and you can’t be mad at me for this. You just… can’t put this sort of pressure on me, John, I’ve known you for, what, maybe 3 weeks? Probably less。 You can’t expect me to stay in a city I don’t even belong in... for a complete stranger, okay?” Johnny started to respond but Ten shook his head and cut him off, “And even then, what do you expect? You hated me for most of the time we knew each other, thought I was some sort of scum you found on the bottom of your sneakers, and then you decide randomly I fit into this idealized version of what you think I could be, and now suddenly you’re in love with me and start following me around everywhere and acting like... I’m going to just jump into your arms and profess my own undying love? That isn’t how things work.”

Johnny froze. That can’t be what Ten thinks. This can’t be what he really thinks. How could Ten call him a complete stranger when he’d flipped Johnnys entire world upside down and back around again? How can he act like its so outrageous that Johnny wants him to stay when he’s the only good thing left in this stupid city?

“I’m sorry, John, but I meant everything I said.” Ten offered, looking mildly ashamed at his outburst, “And I’m sorry if I led you to believe I felt differently.” He kicked his legs out onto the rocks and looked away from Johnny. 

“I’m not in love with you.” Was all Johnny said in return, voice cracking. 

Ten looked back up at him for a few moments with an expression Johnny couldn’t identify, and sighed, “Okay.” He agreed. He didn’t believe Johnny one bit. He stood up slowly and picked up his yellow bag again and slipped it onto his shoulders. All previous signs of crying or any emotion otherwise were completely wiped from his face, “I should go.” He said, deadpanning. 

“So, is this it?” Johnny demanded, pushing his bangs out of his face. He felt like an idiot. A complete and utter idiot. He was the single stupidest fucking person alive. 

Ten took a step toward him and smiled crookedly, in the way that used to make Johnny want to smash his face in, “I think you’ll be seeing me again, Johnny Seo.” He replied, cryptically. What kind of terrible indie movie did he think this was?

“I don’t know if I want to.” Johnny stated. That was a lie. Of course he did. 

Ten didn’t move, though. He stood a couple feet away from Johnny still, looking at the river extending behind him, “I wonder if the food washed up anywhere? Out of everything to find on a beach, I think an entire cooked ham would definitely be one of the weirdest. Traumatizing, really.” He was trying to be funny. Johnny didn’t laugh. 

“What’s your last name, Ten?” Johnny asked, instead of reacting to the his statement. 

Ten exhaled deeply and shook his head, turning to face away from Johnny, holding his backpack straps tight, “I’m not doing this with you right now.” He replied.

“Where were you born?” Johnny asked. 

“John. Don’t.” Ten begged, looking at him with an emotion in his eyes Johnny couldn’t recognize, and honestly didn’t want to even try to. 

 “What language do you speak?” Johnny asked.

“Okay.” Ten completely turned his back to Johnny and took a step away, “I’m not doing this.” 

“Ten.” Johnny said. Ten looked back. Johnny smiled. Ten didn’t. “What’s your favourite colour?” 

Ten hesitated, he stared at Johnny like he was watching bacteria under a microscope. He bit his lip and laughed breathily. Really more of a shudder. He turned back around to face Johnny, “Blue.” He said, with a one shouldered shrug. 

Johnny nodded. He understood. Or at least, believed he did. Hoped he did. 

Ten took a step back toward Johnny and leaned forward, pressing his lips against Johnnys cheek, adding an inappropriately timed cartoonish “mwah” sound as he pulled away, "Maybe if things had been different," And then he turned and left. Just like that. And Johnny was standing alone under the bridge. Again. But this time, it was different. He was really alone. He swore there had been something with him before, not Ten, but something. Maybe not even physically. He felt like someone was missing from the picture right now, like there had been a third person down here. Instead of trying to figure out what that could possibly mean，he ran a hand through his hair, wiped away residue tears he hadn't even known existed, lightly slapped himself in the face, gathered up his courage to be in the outside world, and left. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic drinking game. take a shot whenever someone shrugs or nods, everytime someone laughs, everytime i ask a question outside of dialogue, everytime i KINDA break the 4th wall and suggest johnny is writing his own descriptions, everytime i say "aforementioned" or someone laughs a humourless laugh, and everytime i reference something from 5 chapters ago that everyones forgotten about.  
> also.................. im sorry............... for everythign..................  
> but this is not the end so ........... stick around kiddos  
> ALSO LISTEN I REALIZED AFTER WRITING MOST OF THIS I MADE JOHNNY GO THRU THE STAGES OF GRIEF IN ORDER WITHOUT MEANING TO


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is kinda short sry   
> a lil bit filler but also needed to happen.. this chapter was rly hard to write   
> all ur reviews r making me smile, im glad that osme of yall seem to understand what i barely am able to understand .   
> straight feels like i have no control over these characters im in too deep lmao

His car door was closed, he didn’t remember closing it when he’d left. Maybe Ten had closed it. Maybe the person who’d robbed him of all of his possessions closed it. Either one. Johnny reached for the door handle, but stopped halfway there to sigh. Was this really his life now? Taking breaks in the middle of actions to express emotions? Inconvenient, really. 

He realized, now, that to get into the car meant choosing a destination. He didn’t really want to go home. He couldn’t really go to Marks. He didn’t even know where Ten lived, or if he’d even be there, or want to talk to Johnny in the first place. He sighed again. Always with the sighing these days. 

“Hey Johnny!” A voice spoke out suddenly, making Johnny jump a bit. Whoever that was sounded a little too enthusiastic to see him, which narrowed down the potential suspects quite a bit. 

Johnny glanced behind him. Jaehyun. Why was it always Jaehyun? “Hey, Jaehyun.” He did his best to pretend to match even a quarter of Jaehyuns excitement, “Been a while.” He pulled open his car door and slipped inside, sitting horizontally on the vertical seat so he could look up at Jaehyun.

Jaehyun shrugged, “Couple weeks.” Right. Couple weeks. Barely anytime at all. He smiled pleasantly, “What have you been up to?” He seemed to be physically swaying back and forth in place where he stood. 

Johnny paused and inhaled as much air as he physically could fit into his lungs in response. He considered brushing the question off with a ‘not much’, and had completely decided that was the best course of action, but before he knew it, he was already half way through telling the other boy the entire events of the last couple weeks. Paraphrasing was hard, when even the smallest detail seemed relevant to Johnny in this moment, and by the time he had finished explaining, ending with the kiss on the cheek Ten had left with less than an hour ago, Jaehyun looked like he’d fully gone through the complete range of all known emotions.    
“Wow.” Jaehyun said, eyes wide. 

“Sorry… I, uh, don’t know why I dropped that all on you,” Johnny was embarrassed now, he shifted his body to sit in the car seat properly, gripping the steering wheel tightly, “We barely even know eachother.”

But to Johnnys surprise Jaehyun didn’t look weirded out at all, instead he looked thoughtful, “If you ask me. Which you didn’t, but maybe was coming. I think Ten is right. Sort of. Harsh but right.” He said pensively, staring up at the sky. 

“What?” Johnny asked, not the reaction he’d expected. 

“I believe whatever you’re feeling toward him is completely real, but I don’t think we can blame him for not thinking so himself.” Jaehyun responded, “I mean, clearly you don’t know anything about him, and maybe it makes sense in your head because you’ve been thinking about it for longer than he’s been aware, but jumping straight from ‘get out of my life’ to ‘stay in this country for me’ is pretty…” He trailed off, looking back down at Johnny, “I mean, okay, we’ve had pretty interesting encounters both of the last times we’ve met which has totally changed the course of my day both times, but to you, you probably had a lot of other stuff on your mind, right?”    
“Right.” Johnny affirmed, not sure where Jaehyun was going with this.  

“So what if I came to you and started preaching about how much I loved you and how much you changed my life, you’d understandably be confused, right? And of course, it’s smaller scale, we never committed any crimes together, for example.” He paused to laugh, “...But I think a lot of the life changing you’re blaming on Ten, was a desire you already had, you already wanted to change, so you did. Ten was just a place to project your emotions. If I had been in that sort of mindspace, maybe our encounter with the pork a couple weeks ago would’ve made a greater impact... get it?” Jaehyun finished, proudly. He seemed to have run out of things to say. 

Johnny was silent for a moment, thinking hard. Jaehyun was kind of totally right, God damn him, “You’re smarter than you look.” Johnny noted, quietly. His mind was whirring.    
“Uh. Thank you?” Jaehyun laughed, now it was his turn to sound embarrassed, “Don’t sound so surprised.” 

Johnny looked at him with determination, a feeling he hadn’t felt in awhile, “So what should I do?” He asked.

Jaehyun hesitated, looking at Johnny, “If I were you… I’d go find Ten and be honest with him, like... tell him what you told me and probably more of what you didn’t tell me. Can’t guarantee the results, but its better than letting it go unsaid and having him move across the planet, right?” He scratched the back of his head and closed an eye, “And explain yourself to your friends, and apologize to Taeyong--” Johnny opened his mouth to respond but Jaehyun shook his head and cut him off, “I know you don’t think you’re in the wrong, but it doesn’t matter. Apologize, okay?”

Johnny nodded, inhaling deeply as if the oxygen would give him the courage he needed, “Yeah.” He agreed. He leaned over and pushed open the passenger side door, gesturing for Jaehyun to get in, “You have to come with me though.” He instructed. 

“Why?” Jaehyun questioned, not moving an inch. 

“Because if you aren’t there, I honestly can’t guarantee I won’t end up driving off a cliff.” Johnny replied firmly. 

Jaehyun got into the car without another word, once he was sitting in the passenger seat, with his seatbelt buckled, he turned to Johnny, “What’s your plan?” He asked. 

“What do you mean?” Johnny shoved the key into ignition messily, missing a couple times, and pulled it to a rumbling start. 

“How are you gonna find Ten?” Jaehyun clarified. 

Johnny paused and looked at him, “I don’t know, this was your idea.” He deadpanned, “I don’t know where he lives.” Of course he didn’t. 

“God you’re an idiot.” Jaehyun groaned, dropping his face into his hands, looking up at Johnny between his fingers and then smiled half heartedly, “Oh, also, please don’t fall in love with just because we’re doing something spontaneous and I insulted you, okay?” He joked. He was more than aware of the bad taste the joke was in, but it felt like it needed to be said. 

Johnny hit him in the shoulder. Maybe it didn’t need to be said. 

“Fair.” Jaehyun replied, with a shrug. 

“What should I do?” Johnny asked, he was now ignoring the fact that there was another person in his car entirely. 

“I don’t know, text him and ask, I guess.” Jaehyun suggested, squirming around impatiently in his seat, “I actually was like, on my way to do something before you dragged me into facilitating the final act in whatever stupid play you seem to think you’re living, so the sooner we do this the better.” He wasn’t being serious in the slightest, that was obvious, but Johnny still felt a little bad about it. Not too bad though. 

“Shut up.” Johnny responded, shutting him down completely. He pulled out his cellphone and stared at it, “I don’t know it feels kind of…” He looked at Jaehyun, at a loss for words.    
“Anticlimatic?” Jaehyun offered. 

“Maybe.” Johnny looked back at his phone, “I wish I could just magically show up, just like he did that one time, but…” He sighed. 

“I mean, would it really be that hard to find your way there? If he comes here a lot by foot, it can’t be far, and this area isn’t super residential so there can only be so many houses.” Jaehyun was examining his fingernails, like he’d lost interest in this wild goose chase a long time ago, “If it’s meant to be, destiny will guide your way,” He said, mockingly. 

Johnny glanced out the window. Maybe Jaehyun was right. An asshole, as Johnny was finding out at an increasingly worrying rate, but right, nevertheless. He glanced out the window, staring at the pavement, trying to think. Tens house would probably be between the place they first met and here, right? He’d definitely come from that direction every time they’d met here, “Oh.” He said out loud suddenly, surprising himself. Cigarette butts. Of course. 

“What?” Jaehyun asked, looking up suddenly, alarmed as he watched Johnny slide out of the drivers seat again and onto the road. 

“C’mon,” Johnny gestured for him to follow. 

“I wasn’t...” Jaehyun started to say but trailed off, with a loud sigh entirely intended to let Johnny know how he felt about this situation, but still climbed out of the car after him. 

“Ten smokes like 2 packs a day, if he comes here everyday, there’s gotta be a trail leading us where we want to go,” Johnny explained, already starting to walk off in the direction he assumed was right. 

“Like a third of the country smokes, how are you gonna tell which are his?” Jaehyun responded, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and following after Johnny reluctantly.

 “I know his brand, the filter isn’t like a usual one it’s sort of…” He trailed off, scanning the sidewalk, “Ah!” He exclaimed, diving down to scoop up a piece of what looked like crumpled paper. He held the cigarette butt up triumphantly, waving it in Jaehyuns face. 

Jaehyun wrinkled his nose and batted Johnnys hand away, he looked thoughtful, “Well, thats something you know about him, right?” He pointed out, “Its a small thing, but its something, right?” 

Johnny paused and then nodded with a small smile, “Yeah. I guess.” He turned away from Jaehyun and began tracking again, stopping every few steps to point out another butt. They were silent for a few moments as they walked. 

“What are you gonna do when you get there?” Jaehyun asked, conversationally. 

Johnny shrugged, “I don’t know.” He replied, not taking his eyes off the ground.    
“What are you expecting him to do?” Jaehyun asked, less conversationally. 

Johnny looked up at Jaehyun and repeated himself, slightly harsher this time, “I don’t know,” He looked back at the ground. 

Jaehyun held up his palms defensively, “You have such a temper these days.” He noted, dropping his hands, letting his arms flop down by his sides. 

Johnny didn’t say anything. He was staring at the ground, looking all around. He turned around in a complete 360. He looked at Jaehyun. “They’re gone.” He said, “They ended back there.” He pointed to where the two of them had come from, a couple feet away from where they stood now.

“Maybe this is a place where he just happened to never have finished a cigarette.” Jaehyun offered lamely. 

Johnny was looking at the ground still, biting his lip subconsciously. Not in a sexy sort of flirtatious way, more of a ‘please stop or i’m worried you’re gonna bleed out and die from the gash in your lip’ kind of way. 

“Johnny.” Jaehyun reached out to touch Johnnys shoulder but stopped himself about an inch away, “So the cigarette butt thing didn’t work out, that doesn’t mean anything.” He sounded like a kindergarten teacher. 

“What if he doesn’t want to see me?” Johnny asked, sounding like a child who’s favourite toy had been confiscated, they worked well together, “What if I spend hours figuring it out and when I get there, he doesn’t even want to talk to me,”

“Johnny…” Jaehyun repeated, standing awkwardly with his hand still almost grazing Johnnys jacket. He didn’t know what to do in this situation, and he supposed there wasn’t really much he could do. 

“Why can’t I do this?” Johnny looked over at Jaehyun, he, surprisingly, wasn’t half of the emotional mess Jaehyun had expected. His features looked hard and set, he looked more angry than anything else, “Why can’t I just… All I’ve done while he’s known me is… just inconvenience and hurt him, I got him beaten up twice, for fucks sake, and I’m probably the reason he’s leaving and…” 

“Johnny.” Jaehyun said again, louder this time. 

“What?” Johnny asked. 

“Stop.” Jaehyun told him. 

Johnny paused. “Okay.” He agreed. He sat down on the curb and dropped his face into his lap. “Okay.” He repeated. 

Jaehyun crouched next to him, awkwardly reaching an arm out to tap him on the shoulder in a way that was all but comforting. 

“You can go.” Johnny lifted his head slightly to look at Jaehyun, “If you want, or whatever. I can’t imagine this is where you expected your evening to go.” He wasn’t crying. He felt like he should be crying. 

“Its okay.” Jaehyun responded, taking his hand off Johnnys shoulder, “I don’t want you to end up at the bottom of a cliff, if I can help it.” He smiled and stood up. 

“What do I do?” Johnny asked, following suite and standing up also.

“Call him,” Jaehyun suggested. 

“I can’t.” Johnny shook his head. 

“Why?” Jaehyun asked.    
“Because.” Johnny said, firmly. 

“Not everything has to be a big sort of romantic gesture, Johnny. You don’t have to follow the glowing lights all the way to his house for it to be meaningful.” Jaehyun insisted, exasperatedly, “Just. Call. Him.” He waved a hand dramatically after each word for emphasis. 

“Its not about that.” Johnny shook his head again, turning away from Jaehyun, “It’s not me trying to be… romantic, for fucks sake, because thats…” He trailed off, “I just feel like if I can do this one thing right then maybe…” 

Jaehyun considered firing back a full psychoanalyzation of Johnnys actions, but didn’t. He could point out that that made no fucking sense. And that if Ten liked him, he wouldn’t care. And that at this point would Johnny seriously not just admit he has feelings for Ten? But he didn’t say any of that. Instead he just stood and looked at Johnny, waiting for him to draw his own conclusions. 

“What would I even say? At least if I showed up we’d have… Well.” He buried his face in his hands and sighed heavily, his shoulders visibly shifting, “I don’t know.” 

“Say you’re sorry.” Jaehyun offered.

“For what?” Johnny demanded, lifting his face up to half glare at Jaehyun. It wasn’t genuinely mean spirited, that was obvious. Johnny was projecting his emotions. As he tended to. 

Jaehyun shrugged. “People like to be apologized to.” He explained simply.  

Johnny almost laughed but stopped himself, “Yeah.” He agreed, “I guess.” He pulled his cellphone out of his jean pocket and stared at it. 

“You don’t have to.” Jaehyun reminded him. 

“I know.” Johnny replied, pulling Tens contact up and sighing loudly, pressing call and pulling the phone up against his ear, “I know.” He repeated, quietly. It rang once. Twice. Thrice. Each ring made Johnnys heart sink an inch lower. If he didn’t pick up then--

“John?” 

Johnny exhaled a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding in, “Ten.” He replied. Jaehyun smiled.

“What’s up?” Ten asked, ever so casual. 

“Where do you live?” Johnny demanded, skipping any small talk. That could wait. That could always wait. 

“What?” 

“Where do you live?” Johnny asked again, quieter. 

“What?” Ten asked again. 

Johnny groaned, “Where is your house?”  

“Why?” 

“Because I need to talk to you.” Johnny responded. 

“Why?” 

“Ten, I swear to God.” 

Ten inhaled deeply on the other end and something in the background shuffled, “I’m not at my house,” 

“Where are you?” 

“Johnny I’m…”    
“Don’t call me that.” Johnny cut him off, strongly. Unsure entirely of why hearing Ten call him by that nickname felt so wrong. So fake. 

“John.” Ten corrected himself, then sighed, “Can’t you say it over the phone?” 

“No.” Johnny insisted. 

Ten hesitated for a second, then made a resigned agreeable noise, “Do you know the coffee shop across from the pool? The little local one, I forget the name of it. Has a red door.”

“Yeah, I know it.” Johnny replied. Optimism came rushing back through his veins and he shot Jaehyun a thumbs up, trying and failing to keep an obnoxiously large smile off his face. 

“I’m there. Not for long. Come now.” Ten hung up almost before he’d finished the last word. He didn’t sound mad, but he didn’t sound happy, either. Johnny didn’t mind. Even if Ten was just going to yell at him. He didn’t mind. He’d be okay with fighting, as long as he got to see Ten before he left. 

“What happened?” Jaehyun inquired, looking happily surprised at Johnny’s sudden change of mood. 

“He’s nearby.” Johnny grinned. Jaehyun mirrored his expression, and they stood there smiling for a few seconds, before Johnny remembered the potential time limit, he held up a hand and grinned, “Race you to my car.” He called, turning on his heel and bolting off toward where they’d come from. 

“Fuck!” Jaehyun yelled after him in English, turning and chasing after him. 

The feeling of his feet hitting the pavement felt right. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> r u guys on johnnys side or tens side i wanna kno what yall r thinkin


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sry lol ive been rly busy at school n shit

Johnny imagined his jog from the car to the front door of the cafe in slow motion, his feet hitting the ground with loud vibrating booms, with gentle piano music playing in the background from some unseen source. He pushed open the door, and inhaled deeply, ready for some sort of speech he had barely given a second thought to. Speak from the heart, right? Thats what people usually did in times like this. But, upon opening the door, with more of a dramatic flair than intended, hitting the wall with a crash and making a few magazines fall off of a rack on the wall, he came face to face with Mark, holding a brown paper bag, turning to leave through the same door he’d burst out of in some sort of fate aligned unfortunate timing. 

“Johnny!” Mark exclaimed, looking surprised and a little scared, but ultimately happy to see him.   

“Oh, hey,”　Johnny greeted, eyes wide. He glanced past Mark to scan the rest of the cafe, most of whom were staring directly back at him. He didn’t see Ten. “Do you know where, uh…” He trailed off, not sure how to finish the sentence. 

“Hey Mark!” Jaehyun chimed in, appearing behind Johnny, smiling like a beam of annoying sunlight.

“Jaehyun?” Mark sounded taken aback, he gave Johnny a look, “What are you--”

“Mark. I love you but I can’t answer your questions right now. I’ll explain later, I’ll explain… everything later. I just need to do something.” Johnny interrupted him, pushing past and through the doorway, emerging on the other side with as much drama as he could muster. At this point he was owning it. That’s what they did in movies, right? 

Mark looked at Jaehyun with wide eyes, and Jaehyun shrugged in response, “Dude, honestly I wish I fucking knew.” Jaehyun whispered, following after Johnny, past Mark and through the doorway.

Johnny was stood in the center of the cafe scanning the rows of tables, ignoring the girl at the counter asking him over and over if he needed help with anything. He was aware of the presence of both Mark and Jaehyun behind him, but didn’t pay them any attention.

“Is he here?” Jaehyun asked. 

“Who?” Mark questioned. Both Jaehyun and Johnny ignored him. 

“No.” Johnny replied, trying and failing to not sound desperate. He turned around to look at Jaehyun with furrowed eyebrows, “He’s not here.” He sounded like a kid who didn’t get as many christmas presents as his little sister. 

“Who?” Mark asked. He was ignored, once again. 

“Then... where is he?” Jaehyun furrowed his brows, mirroring Johnnys exact expression and looking almost as invested in this as Johnny was. If it weren’t for the mischievous twinkle in his eye (no really, you could actually see it) Johnny would believe he was. 

“How should I know?” Johnny demanded, running his hands through his hair nervously. 

“Who isn’t here?” Mark asked. To no ones surprise, he was ignored again. 

“So what now?” Jaehyun turned to glance out at the street, his mouth screwed up into a grimace. 

“I don’t know.” Johnny replied. But then, suddenly there was a presence behind Johnny. Someone laughed quietly. God dammit. 

“Hey.” Ten spoke, with a small grin you could hear in his tone of voice. 

Johnny turned slowly to look at him. He smiled. The stress of the day evaporated around him, falling to the earth as dust, “Hey.” He replied, quietly. 

Ten looked past Johnny at the two younger boys and quirked an eyebrow, “Hey Jaehyun,” He greeted. Jaehyun replied with an awkward grin and gave a half wave. Mark just looked more confused than ever. 

“You know eachother?” Johnny asked incredulously, turning back in surprise. 

“Barely.” Jaehyun responded, staring at his shoes. 

Johnny looked at Ten and then at Jaehyun, but then shook his head, “We’ll have time for that later,” He decided, “We have more important things on the table.” He was pretending not to notice that more than half of the cafe was intently watching them. 

“Do we?” Ten raised an eyebrow.  

“Yes.” Johnny replied, matter-of-factly. 

Tens eyes were drilling holes through Johnnys skull as he stared, he paused for a moment, then relaxed and nodded, “Okay. Not here, though.” He gestured at the cafe. By this time, everyone was watching them. 

Johnny nodded in agreement, and turned to usher Jaehyun and Mark out of the restaurant before following himself. He looked at Ten, “You have your backpack?” He asked, recalling the large yellow bag full of what Ten said was all of his possessions. 

“Yeah.” Ten responded, leaving the cafe a couple beats after them. He didn’t have it, though, he didn’t even have the coat he’d been wearing when he’d seen Johnny last. 

Johnny almost pointed that out, but decided against it, Ten was just going to do what Ten was going to down, that had been established. He cleared his throat. “We tried to follow cigarette butts.” Johnny said, instead of acknowledging his coatlessness. Because, apparently, that was the best course of action here, just to confess the hour of creepiness and almost tears he’d just endured with, who else but, Jaehyun by his side. 

Jaehyun looked at him. Ten looked at Johnny. Mark looked at Johnny. Johnny looked at Ten. There was a pause. 

“What?” Ten asked, sounding like he was on the verge of a laugh, “You tried to find my house? I’m not fucking Hansel and Gretel” He grinned, his nose wrinkling up a annoyingly adorable way.

“How did you guess that from…” Johnny began to ask, but cut himself off when he remembered there was barely a point in questioning how Ten knew anything, “Yes. But it’s not what it sounds like.” 

“What do you think it sounds like?” Ten was watching him carefully now. 

“I don’t know… stalkerish? Or…” Johnny took a deep breath and held out a hand to stop Ten from talking for a second, not that he was trying to, “I just… needed to talk to you.” He offered, giving an awkward crooked smile that didn’t reach his eyes. 

“About what?” Ten asked, cheerfully. How did he always manage to sound so casual? 

Johnny glanced at Mark and Jaehyun nervously. They both pretended to not be listening, suddenly turning to look up at the sky like they were completely fascinated by the clouds. At this point, Johnny didn’t care. He turned back to Ten and inhaled deeply before saying, “It was… not cool for me to tell you that you couldn’t leave, that was selfish, I just…” He laughed awkwardly and looked at his shoes, “Like you a lot, I guess. I would hate for you to… leave and for me to never be able to…” 

“I like you too, John,” Ten replied, grinning in his Ten-ish way, “I think you’re interesting.” 

“So?” Johnny prompted, barely even sure what he wanted Ten to say. 

“So what?” Ten raised an eyebrow. 

_ Sew buttons. _ Johnnys mums voice echoed in the back of his brain, the standard response to that question that had been drilled into him since he was young, “So… What does that mean?” 

Ten looked at Johnny critically, scanning him up and down. 

“Can you stop looking at me like that?” Johnny asked, with a hint of annoyance that felt very out of place right now. 

“Like what?” Ten replied, thoroughly amused. 

“Like you’re in a zoo, watching some wild animal you’ve never seen before, like you’re trying to read my mind. Whatever.” Johnny was embarrassed, he had lost most of the control he’d previously had over what came out of his mouth, apparently whatever filter that had, at one point, existed had long since disintegrated. 

“I’m not. John.” Ten reached out to gently poke Johnnys shoulder. It was two sentences. His name  _ John _ was an entire other thought, a different paragraph. 

“So. What does that mean.” Johnny repeated, looking at the sky, too nervous now to make eye contact. The edges of the clouds were turning light pink and yellow. It must be later than he thought. 

“What do you want it to mean?” Ten asked, ever the psychoanalyzer. 

“I don’t know.” Johnny admitted, shrugging. He kicked a small pebble on the sidewalk on to the road. 

Tens eyes followed the rock, “I hope… you understand.” He said, simply. 

“Understand what?” Johnny looked up at him for the first time in a while, feeling resigned. 

“I like you. But I like… I like coffee, and I like the sky, and I like traveling, and…” Ten took a step toward Johnny, “Me liking you, doesn’t mean.... That I…  _ Like  _ you.” 

Johnny glanced toward Jaehyun and Mark, who were both looking as casual as they could pretend to be as they were obviously eavesdropping on every word that was said. Jaehyun couldn’t even speak English, right? Why was he so worried? And Mark didn’t have enough context to understand, so he barely needed to worry about that. Or maybe needed to worry more about that. Johnny shook his head in dismal of his own thoughts and turned back to stare at Ten. They stood in silence for a moment, eyes locked. Johnny cleared his throat, “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” 

Ten let out a nervous chuckle and stuck his hands into his front pockets, “Booked a flight to the beautiful U S of A for tomorrow morning.” He explained, giving Johnny a awkwardly cute crooked smile that looked almost rehearsed. 

“Tomorrow?” Johnny echoed, titling his head back in surprise. 

“Yeah.” Ten responded, dropping his hands back down by his sides. 

“So you still have tonight?” 

“I guess.” 

“Then why does this have to end now?” Johnny demanded, taking a step toward Ten, “Why do you have to say your goodbyes now? We still have time.” 

“Johnathan…” Ten started to say warningly, widening his eyes for effect. He took a step back. 

“Ten. God. Okay. I’m not… hopelessly in love with you, or whatever bullshit you think I am, okay? I just… want to hang out with you.... before you leave. That’s all.” Johnny explained, holding his palms out to stop Ten from continuing to speak. That was true. He wasn’t lying. That’s genuinely all that he wanted, “Is that such a crime?”

Ten looked at him. Johnny looked back. Ten nodded and laughed to himself, “Okay. John.” He turned back toward the cafe, from which they were barely standing a few feet away, directly blocking the path of the people trying to enter or exit comfortably. Now that Johnny was aware of his surrounding he remembered the people squeezing by them awkwardly a few moments before. Ten pulled open the door, “I got to get my stuff. Stay right here.” He smiled, and walked back through the doorway, in a manner so smooth and unbothered that Johnny could still not understand how he could exist on this planet like that. Then Ten was inside. And Johnny was left alone with Mark and Jaehyun. 

“What?” Mark asked, suddenly. He sounded like he’d just been woken up from a dream. 

Johnny turned to look at him, and opened his mouth to try to explain, but fell short. He closed his mouth again and just shrugged. 

“Is that the same guy who Taeyong…” Mark started to ask, but seemed to stop himself, “Are you like… dating?” He demanded, looking almost hysterical. 

“Told you I wasn’t the least subtle person ever,” Johnny answered cryptically, suddenly surprised and proud of the way that he’d kept these lives separate. It was a dumb thing to be proud of, maybe, but he didn’t have a lot of things to be proud of these days. 

Ten pushed the door back open at this exact moment, now carrying the large yellow backpack, now wearing his usual green coat. He met Johnnys eyes and smiled. 

Johnny watched him for a moment, and then turned back to face his other friends, “This is Ten,” Johnny offered, by way of introduction, gesturing toward the other boy, “This is Mark, and Jaehyun, who you know for some weird reason I’m honestly afraid to ask about.” 

Ten ignored him completely and reached out to shake Marks hand, giving him a genuinely sweet smile that seemed foreign on his face, the kind of smile reserved for your friends parents, “Hi! I’m Ten. Nice to meet you.” He greeted in Korean, suddenly the social butterfly.    
Mark gave him a dazed look and took his hand, shaking it once, a bit too forcefully, “I’m Mark.” He nodded. 

Johnny watched them interact, quietly. He’d never expected his two worlds to collide, for whatever reason. Especially not here. Definitely not now.  _ Then when?  _ His brain asked. He noticed, with annoyance, that his brain had taken on the voice and speech patterns of a certain friend of his who he hadn’t talked to since he was accused of robbery and luring people into the aforementioned friends work to beat him up. Right. Taeyong. He still had to… deal with that. Later. Always later. 

“That was totally stupid.” Jaehyun spoke up, interrupting Johnnys thoughts and reaching an arm around to sling around his shoulders like they were in the ending some weird coming of age movie, where somehow over the course of the 2 hours they all became lifetime friends even though they barely even talked. They did talk though. Actually, they had talked about more than Johnny had talked to most of his other friends in the last couple months. And Johnny supposed maybe that kind of meant they kind of were kind of friends now. 

“What was?” Johnny asked, innocently. 

_ “Why do you have to say your goodbyes now? We still have time.”   _ Jaehyun quoted, mockingly, rolling his eyes good naturedly and jabbing a finger at Johnny accusingly. 

Fuck, of course. 

“You speak English.” Johnny stated. It wasn’t even a question at this point. Of course he did, “You spoke English this whole time.” 

Jaehyun shrugged and grinned, “Yeah, seems that way.” 

Johnny sighed deeply and looked at Jaehyun for a moment, and then turned back at Ten and Mark who were staring back at him, Ten looking amused, Mark looking vaguely uncomfortable, “So...what now?” Johnny asked. 

Jaehyun looked at his watch and titled his head in thought, “Well. Whatever I was on my way to do is more than over now, so I guess you’re stuck with me for this evening.” 

Johnny tried to shoot him a meaningful look, asking for his cooperation right now, asking for him to leave, but Jaehyun directly avoided it by staring straight ahead at the sunset, which was casting orangey red shadows on his face, “But you…” Johnny trailed off. He looked at Ten. Ten was still smiling at him, Johnny took a deep breath and smiled back, he figured he could make this all work out, “Okay. Well. C’mon then.” He said, while pulling out his car key and dangling it in front of him. 

“Where are you going?” Mark asked, looking as confused as ever. 

“You’re coming too. Sorry, buddy.” Jaehyun responded, linking an arm around one of Marks and pulling him toward Johnnys car. Johnny had apparently no say in who was coming to spend his last day with Ten, but he strangely didn’t mind. 

Johnny half laughed, half snorted, and walked after them, angling his body as he strode to watch Ten out of his peripheral vision. Ten moved to follow him, and then paused. Johnny looked at him, determined to make the last night as unawkward, as unfighty, as uncryey as possible, “So, do I get to know how you know Jaehyun?” He asked conversationally, raising an eyebrow for dramatic effect. 

“Nope.” Ten responded instantly, holding either strap of his backpack with his hands, he grinned. He looked like a child on his first day of school, “Sorry John, some things you just don’t get to know.” 

Jaehyun apparently didn’t get the memo that he was supposed to be as mysterious and edgy as Ten, he poked his head back out through the passenger seat window, “Its a funny story, actually, remember the day I saw you Johnny? When you were running with the pork? Well… Ten was actually--” 

“Jaehyun!” Ten cut him off, shooting him a half-assed glare, “Some things John just doesn’t get to know.” He repeated, he pulled open the sliding back door of Johnnys car and slipped in, dropping his bag into the trunk. 

“No! I want to hear it!” Johnny responded, laughing. A couple days ago if Ten had showed the slightest sign of unhappiness he would’ve left it alone. Something was different now. 

“Sorry, apparently some things you just don’t get to know,” Jaehyun echoed Ten, smirking at Johnny. 

“I’m still confused.” Mark spoke up from the back seat, directly next to Ten, who had apparently already claimed both of the entire footrests, leaving Mark sitting criss crossed and looking not very happy about it. 

Johnny pulled his own door open finally and looked back at him, “I told you I’d explain later, and I will,” He promised giving what he hoped was a meaningful smile. 

Mark looked unsatisfied, but nodded, “So…” He started to say and then paused. And then, suddenly, he was laughing. Really, really loudly. And then, apparently, Johnny was laughing too, slumped back against his car seat. And then Jaehyun joined in, seeming to pass laughter and go straight to breathless tears. And then, finally Ten was laughing too. And they sat like this, in Johnnys beaten up truck, laughing their hearts out, for a few minutes. And God fucking dammit did this, now more than ever, feel like a shitty coming of age movie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ya idk give me ur thoughts? i literally dont plan anything i write (obviously) but i have 3 sort of paths i might end up taking this down, so idk? try to predict? tell me what u want? idk?   
> this day might take like .............. 2 more chapters to finish.......... idk ........... we'll see


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY SORRY ITS BEEN YEARS   
> im not ... completely satisfied with this chapter, and it took me SO long to write but...   
> here ya go

Johnny was nervous. Like really, really nervous. His heart felt like it was pounding up against the back of his throat, and he couldn’t stop moving his hands. Why? He couldn’t have told you. Jaehyun, however, might have had some theories about why, but no one was asking Jaehyun, so we (and anybody else who might have been wondering) will never know. 

He’d been driving for a couple minutes already, before he made the realization that he would eventually have to decide on a destination, somehow this hadn’t crossed his mind. Maybe the excitement and disbelief that such a harebrained scheme had worked. That now he was sitting in the car with the boy he’d spent the last couple hours trying to find. He took a deep breath. Where was he driving to? When there’s a time limit, it makes everything feel much, much more difficult. All of his usual favourite spots seemed pointless and stupid and not good enough. This was Ten’s last day in Korea, he had to make it special right? He had to make it perfect, right? 

“So…” Johnny hummed quietly, drumming his thumbs against the steering wheel, “Where do you guys want to go?” He asked, as casually as he could pretend to be right now. He was just glad Ten couldn’t see the way his thigh was shaking. 

Ten pulled his head back into the car from where he’d been hanging out of the window, like a dog riding in a car for the first time, “What?” He asked. Johnny couldn’t see him, but he could feel his gaze on the back of his head. 

“I’ve kind of just been driving… I don’t really have a…” Johnny trailed off, awkwardly, as he used the side of his hand to aimlessly try and itch his nose. 

Ten paused for a moment and stuck his tongue out slightly between his teeth in thought, “I don’t know, somewhere pretty.” He offered finally, falling back against the backrest of his chair. 

“We could go to the beach?” Jaehyun cut in suddenly, surprising Johnny a little, as Johnny had somehow forgotten the existence of the boy sitting next to him. Never mind, the other one who was sitting directly behind him. Mark had long given up on trying to get the answers to any of his questions about what or where or who, and was instead humming loudly along to his ipod. 

“Which beach?” Johnny asked. He felt like he was leaning in too close to the steering wheel, he felt like he was doing weird things with his body right now that he wasn’t entirely sure he had complete control over. HIs mind was on a thousand tv channels at once.    
“We should go to Jeju.” Ten said decisively, kicking his knees up onto the seat in front of him, “There’s beaches there, right?” 

Jaehyun snorted, “We can’t go to Jeju, idiot.” 

“Why not?” Ten asked, “I’ve never been!” 

“We’d have to fly there, it’s really far from Seoul,” Johnny explained, taking his eyes off the road for the first time since they’d entered the car to glance back at Ten. 

“So?” Ten prompted, sounding like he couldn’t believe that would even be a compliant with his plan. Of course it wouldn’t even be a thought for Ten. 

Johnny opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by a loud bang followed by a sizzling noise, which came, to Johnnys absolute dismay, from the hood of his car. 

“What was that?” Mark asked, pulling out a headphone and looking alarmed. 

“Fuck.” Johnny said. 

His car made a horrible loud shuddering noise, and gently came to a complete stop. It was silent for a moment. 

“Fuck.” Johnny said again. 

This wasn’t the first time that had happened, and Johnny knew it wasn’t the end of the world, but God fucking Dammit, this was the worst possible time for his car to break down. Johnny groaned loudly, dropping his head down until his forehead made contact with the rubber of the steering wheel. 

Ten laughed, breaking the silence and fumbled around in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes, “Perfect timing, huh?” He joked, pushing the car door open and slipping out, holding a smoke between his teeth. He strolled casually to the front of the car and lit his cigarette, staring pensively at the hood. 

“Do you know how to fix cars?” Jaehyun asked Ten hopefully, following his lead and climbing out of the car. 

“Not at all.” Ten admitted with a grin. 

“We should call a tow truck,” Mark suggested, climbing across the seats to leave through the door Ten had left ajar, “Anyone know the number?” 

There was a pause. 

Johnny lifted his head off the steering wheel and looked out at the three of them standing in a line in front of him. He shook his head slowly. 

“We could call the cops.” Ten suggested. He had one arm crossed across his torso, and the other hanging loose by his hips with the cigarette dangling lazily from his fingers, he looked like he was the lead actor in an old French movie. 

“We can’t call the cops.” Jaehyun shut him down immediately, giving Ten a look of disbelief. 

“What do we do then?” Mark asked, sounding nervous. He took a tentative step toward the car, looking afraid, as if it would explode at any second. 

Ten gave him an exaggerated eye roll, tossing his cigarette over his shoulder without looking where it fell and crouched down to examine when the lid of the hood met the body.

“You’re gonna set a fucking forest fire,” Johnny complained, jumping out of the car as quickly as he could without falling flat on his face, he stormed over to where the ember still lay burning and stamped it out. 

Ten looked at him and grinned, “Where’s the forest, John?” He teased, standing back up as quickly as he’d sat down. 

“What are you trying to do?” Johnny asked, rolling his eyes. 

“I’m trying to fix your car, John.” Ten responded, looking a little too cocky for Johnnys liking. 

“The hood’s not even open.” Mark pointed out. 

“You just said you don’t know how to.” Johnny reminded him, moving to stand next to him, pressing his hands against the hood, expecting it to be warm to the touch for whatever reason. It wasn’t. 

“I can figure it out,” Ten shrugged.  And honestly, more than anyone else, he probably could. Before anyone could say anything, Ten had pulled the hood up with much more force than necessary, and was standing proudly and staring into the ever so slightly smoking mess of metallic pieces that, to any of their knowledge, had no logical reason to be there. 

“How much do you wanna bet the car explodes?” Jaehyun mumbled, partially to himself. 

“5 thousand won that he dies.” Mark responded, with a laugh. 

I’m not going to bore you with the details of the next few minutes, as they mostly fell into silence, completely mesmerized by Ten, who, by the end of it, was almost upside down, with half his torso submerged in the machinery, mumbling curse words in a variety of languages. Instead, I’ll jump ahead 11 minutes, to the part where Ten is slouched on the ground, covered in oil, and the car is spurting almost twice as much grey smoke as when he’d started. 

“What did we learn today?” Jaehyun asked in a mocking teacher like voice. Johnny marveled for a moment at his confidence, how easily he was joking around with Ten, as if they were long time friends. Johnny wished he was like that. 

“Get bent.” Ten responded firmly with a dark glare in Jaehyuns direction, rubbing his grimy hands on his shorts, which wasn’t doing much except for moving the dirt around in small circles. Jaehyun laughed. Johnny wished he was like that too, not just instantly freezing up the moment someone showed any emotion outside of complete happiness. He wasn’t sure why he was thinking about all of this right now, of all times.

“Why don’t we just call someone to pick us up?” Mark suggested. Whatever mood he had been in earlier had faded, and he seemed normal again. Normal and happy. 

Johnny looked at him, “You couldn’t have suggested that before Ten almost lost a hand?” He asked. 

“I almost fixed your car, and this is the thanks I get?” Ten demanded, loudly, pushing himself off of the ground with a loud huff. 

Jaehyun nodded with too much enthusiasm, “Yeah, you really did. Hey, you should open your own mechanic shop!” He replied, with a laugh. 

Ten stuck up his middle finger and grinned, “Fuck off, Jung Jaehyun,” They seemed to get along really well. They seemed like real friends. They probably were. They were probably better friends than Ten and Johnny, anyways. Not that that was hard to do. Ten even knew Jaehyuns last name, which is more than you could say for Johnny. Suddenly Johnny was doubting every single second of every single day since he’d met Ten. Suddenly he was doubting every aspect of his own being. He took a deep breath. 

“Who do we know that can drive?” He asked, interrupting his own thoughts. 

Mark thought about it for a minute and then shrugged, “You.” He responded, honestly. 

“Perfect.” Johnny groaned. 

And then, as if by magic, or some magical universe alignment, a car, probably only the 3rd car they’d seen the entire time they’d been stranded, slowed down to a stop a few meters away from where they stood. 

“Johnny?” An all too familiar voice said. And of course, out of anyone on the planet that it could have possibly been, it was Lee Goddamn Taeyong. Classic. When the universe opens a window, it also throws a cactus in your face. He stuck his head out of the passenger seat window and gave Johnny a confused look. 

“Oh. Hey, Taeyong.” Johnny greeted, as casually as he could muster. 

“Are you okay?” Taeyong asked, looking concerned. No matter towards whom, or in what situation Taeyong was in, his motherly instinct couldn’t not shine through. It was a fatal flaw, really.

“Fine.” Johnny responded, nodding. There was a silence. 

Mark rolled his eyes, probably at Johnny’s unspoken refusal to accept Taeyongs currently unoffered assistance, “His car broke down, we’ve been stuck here for almost an hour,” He said, giving Taeyong the cutest smile he could. 

Taeyong nodded. He slowly opened his car door and stepped out, looking smaller than ever in his oversized hoodie. He stood, staring at Johnny expectantly for a moment, before turning back to Mark, “Do you want me to call someone?” He asked, awkwardly. 

Johnny was avoiding eye contact with Taeyong at all costs, with his body angled almost completely in the other direction. He turned back towards his car to see Ten, ducked almost completely out of view, and Jaehyun sitting on the hood, watching Johnny, with a toothy smile. Jaehyun nodded meaningfully, like it was some sort of secret code that Johnny was supposed to pick up on. 

“Tow truck would be great,” Jaehyun said, with a huge grin.  

Taeyong nodded slowly, he seemed to be weighing his options, which weren’t many, “Okay.” He said, finally, turned back toward the car he’d been in and called out, “Taeil, can I use your phone?” The driver, who Johnny instantly recognized, poked his head out and gave a thumbs up.    
“You’re with Moon Taeil?” Johnny asked incredulously, forgetting he was supposed to be awkward for a moment, out of surprise. Taeils family and Johnnys were close friends, but Johnny had barely even spoken more than a few words to him, he was the last person Johnny expected to see right now, except maybe a pack of wolves, “I didn’t know you guys knew eachother!” 

Taeyong looked at him, with a specific expression that Johnny couldn’t entirely identify, “Yeah. Apparently there’s a lot of things we didn’t know about eachother,” He stated, softly. 

Johnny hesitated. He half considered, just falling silent again, just avoiding the conflict for another day. But he couldn’t. That was the old Johnny. The new Johnny faced things head on. The new Johnny wasn’t afraid of anything. He rolled his eyes as good naturedly as he could muster, “God, Tae, stop acting like a jealous girlfriend,” Johnny said. This would either lighten the mood, or make Taeyong just straight up turn around and leave. It was pretty 50/50.

“What?” Taeyong asked, venom dripping from his voice in the perfectly subtle enough way that only he could do. 

“Taeyong… You misunderstood, okay?” Johnny started, staring at his shoes, “I wasn’t trying to get you beaten up, and I didn’t steal anything, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”  

Taeyong looked at him for a long moment, looking expectant. Taeil had climbed out of the car a few moments ago, and was now awkwardly standing behind him, looking like he was pretending not to be hearing what was going on in front of him. Johnny felt bad for him. And for Mark and Jaehyun and Ten. But this needed to be said. 

“And Ten’s a really nice guy, even if he has a lot of grey morality when it comes to what’s illegal and not,” Johnny said, smiling broadly. He knew he sounded like an idiot, but didn’t care. He was celebrating his own victory, he was celebrating what he truly believed to be the death of the old Johnny and the final evolution of the new and improved version of himself. 

Taeyong didn’t say anything for another minute and then exhaled deeply, he looked at Johnny, looking only slightly less furious than moments before, “Is that supposed to be an apology?” He demanded. Somehow equally yelling and whispering, another talent specific to Taeyong. 

Johnny shook his head slightly, and smiled, “I’m really sorry.” He wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for, but he also couldn’t say what he wouldn’t have been apologizing for. Everything, maybe. Nothing. 

Taeyong nodded slowly, running his tongue along his upper teeth like he did when he was thinking. He hesitated for half a second before sighing, “Okay.” He said, at last, turning back to face Taeil who passed him his phone in an only slightly awkward fashion. Taeyong punched a number into Taeils flip phone (No, really), and held it up to his ear. He looked up at the sky as it rang. 

Johnny turned back to glance at where Ten and Jaehyun were sitting still, Ten only slightly more visibly behind the car than before. Jaehyun gave him a supportive nod. Ten didn’t look at Johnny at all. He was staring out at the road with no emotion what so ever on his face. Johnny hadn’t expected this, he was sure Ten would have at least some reaction to how Johnny explained him to Taeyong. But Ten seemed otherwise preoccupied. Johnny couldn’t help feeling disappointed. Why? Whatever. Stop asking so many questions. 

“Tow truck will be here in 20 minutes,” Taeyong announced, flipping Taeils phone closed. 

“Great. Thanks.” Johnny nodded. He stood for a few minutes, trying not to make eye contact with Taeyong, who was boring holes into the side of his face. Eventually he gave in, and slowly raised his eyes to the other boys. 

“You’re an idiot,” Taeyong told him, the second their eyes met. 

“I know.” Johnny responded. 

“I don’t think you actually do.” Taeyong said. 

“I do.” Johnny said. 

Taeyong shrugged and turned away, he looked at Taeil, “Lets go?” He suggested. 

Taeil nodded and shot Johnny a quick smile and a wave, “See you, John,” He said, clearly unaware of the impact that name would have on Johnny. He hated that name out of anyone elses mouth but Tens. 

“Bye.” Johnny replied, with a small smile. 

The two of them climbed back into their car, without so much as a second glance, and drove off. Leaving the four of them alone again, on the side of the road, with a still slightly smoking car, and a recently smoking Ten. 

“Damn.” Mark muttered, once they’d disappeared from sight. 

“Yeah.” Johnny agreed.  

It was completely dark by this point, Johnny had just been too preoccupied to notice. A street lamp a few feet away was flickering in an almost ominous way. Johnny shivered, half from cold, half not. A frog was singing in a nearby bush. It felt almost like the beginning of a terrible horror movie. 

“So what now?” Jaehyun asked, breaking the silence. 

“We wait.” Ten sighed, pulling his car door open dramatically and half fell inside.

“And then what?” Jaehyun asked. 

“I don’t know.” Ten responded, sounding resigned. 

The excitement had died down. Johnny couldn’t imagine going anywhere at all now. He felt weird. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. There weren’t supposed to be awkward silences or doubtful thoughts. They were supposed to be having fun even if they were just sitting on the side of the highway, right? 

“Lucky that Taeyong showed up,” Mark mused, mostly to himself.  

“Yeah.” Johnny agreed. 

“And you apologized to him, that’s good.” Jaehyun added, giving Johnny a partial smile. 

Ten didn’t make a sound. 

Silence resumed. This wasn’t right. What was wrong? 

Johnny sighed loudly, and climbed back into the car. He felt extremely tired all of a sudden. 

Ten looked up at him as he got in, face cast in the strange light from the street lamps. He looked thoughtful, and like he wanted to say something, but couldn’t. Johnny was probably just reading into things too far. 

“How do you know Jaehyun?” Johnny asked, keeping his voice low. He just wanted to make conversation, he didn’t want to know the answer, he was afraid it’d be a beautiful romantic story about how amazing their friendship is, and he didn’t want to hear that. But he asked anyways. 

Ten almost laughed, but stopped himself. He must also feel the mood, “It’s not anything really.” He started, looking up at the roof of the car with a small smile, “I met him, actually, the day we met, you know? A bit after” 

Johnny looked at him. He looked otherworldly in this lighting, the shadows cast on his face made his features look sharper, like they were cut out of marble, “Oh yeah?” He prompted.

Ten looked at Johnny and smiled, “What do you want me to say? We met each other, and now we know each other. Thats what happens.” 

But Johnny wasn’t satisfied with that response, “How did you start talking? Did you hang out again afterwards, or…” He trailed off. He sounded crazy. He sounded absolutely insane. Why was he so jealous about this?

Ten didn’t seem bothered, he barely even seemed aware that Johnny had been talking, instead he just gingerly lay down across the back row of seats and let out a deep breath, “My flight is in 7 hours.” He stated, quietly, changing the subject entirely. 

“Oh.” Johnny said. 

“Yeah.” Ten hummed. 

“Okay.” Johnny said. 

“Okay.” Ten agreed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter is gonna be a little bit terrible and im SORRY ive been planning this ridiculously angsty scene for weeks in my head ....... get ready   
> im probably gonna update tomorrow or the next day lmaoo! this chapter was just rly hard to write for some reason , thats why it took yearssssssssssss


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay well.................... idk what to say ................ just ........ sorry? probably?  
> this is kinda short so ... double apology .

I wish I could tell you that the night picked up after that, that in no time they were sitting on the (completely fixed)  hood of Johnnys car, on a beach somewhere, staring at the stars. I wish I could tell you that they laughed all night long and told each other all of the secrets they’d never told anyone. But not of that happened, not even a little bit of any of it. 

The tow truck came about half an hour after I left off, and the guy stood and laughed at them for a few minutes for trying to fix it to begin with, and then hooked them onto the back of his truck, and drove them to his shop. 

Mark was long past curfew, and took a bus home from where the driver let them off. Mark gave Johnny a meaningful look before leaving, and they made a mental promise right then that Johnny would explain himself next time they saw each other. Johnny forgot any of this was out of the ordinary, he forgot the version of himself he believed he’d killed on the side of that road had ever existed, and had ever been the kind of person that this would be unexpected.  But he promised Mark an explanation anyways, because thats what he was supposed to do. 

Johnny, Jaehyun and Ten milled around the carpark awkwardly for almost half an hour, not sure if they should wait or not. The repairman told them he was off duty, and he wouldn’t even start until the next morning. So they left, and they went to the only place in walking distance that was open at this time of night, which just happened to be McDonalds. They were the only ones in the entire restaurant, if you could call it that, save for an old man slumped against the wall in the corner, no doubt to drunk to move and a young bored looking woman at the front desk, flipping through a book. It had an eery feeling Johnny couldn’t possibly have explained, but he seemed to be the only one who thought so. 

“I heard the nuggets aren’t even chicken, I heard they’re like… plastic or something.” Jaehyun said, mouth full of the previously mentioned chicken nuggets. 

“That’s not true.” Ten responded with a snort, dipping a fry halfheartedly into the sickly orange sauce the bored looking woman had given him. 

“No! It is! I watched a documentary about it!” Jaehyun insisted. 

 “I don’t think its plastic, but its definitely not chicken,” Johnny spoke up, quietly, he felt like the mediator, always the voice of reason in any argument even if it wasn’t all that serious. 

Jaehyun shook his head wildly, popping another chicken nugget into his mouth in one big, “One day they’ll all come clean,” He grinned, “Then you’ll see,” 

“You’re the one eating the damn things anyways.” Ten pointed out.  

“Shut up.” Jaehyun replied.  

Johnny laughed, leaning back in his chair and looking at the two of them. Whatever stupid doubt had strained his mind earlier today had vanished, he had never been a jealous paranoid wreck, and wasn’t about to start now. 

Ten glanced over at Johnny with a grin the size of his face, and they made eye contact for a second before Ten broke it to stare awkwardly out the window instead. And then Johnny decided, right then and there, to forget that Ten was leaving tomorrow morning. They didn’t have time for goodbyes or regrets, however one sided they may be. They were just going to have fun, until the last moment possible.

“Plus, even if it is plastic, is that really our biggest concern?” Johnny asked, moving back forward to rest his elbows on the small table. 

“Thats true.” Ten nodded, wrinkling his nose slightly, “And some people eat plastic intentionally.” He said, thoughtfully.  

“Speaking from experience?” Jaehyun joked, leaning back in his chair to try and toss the packaging into the garbage can. He couldn’t reach, it was clearly at least 10 feet away from him. He was still trying though. You had to admire that in him, “If anyone would be a plastic eater… C’mon it would have to be you,” 

Ten snorted loudly and threw a wadded up piece of paper in his general direction, “Fuck off,” 

Johnny bit his tongue to stop himself from telling Ten off for swearing like he was so used to doing with Mark. Not the place, or the time, he reminded himself, though really, from an outside view, Ten would have likely found it funny. Instead Johnny just laughed in response. Although he had already decided to forget Ten was leaving, he couldn’t get the residue of the feeling out of his head. He couldn’t help watching himself from outside his body, couldn’t help feeling like this was how it was supposed to be. He couldn’t help thinking back to the wasted time, the time he spent being angry at Ten, the time he’d spent being awkward. The time he was currently spending being awkward. The time he would, with a doubt, spend being awkward in the future. He was being stupid. He had forgotten Ten was leaving already, remember? No. Exactly. Because he forgot.  

“Are you good, John?” Ten asked, looking over like he’d just discovered a new species of fungus in the forest. He’d pulled his legs up into an uncomfortable looking criss cross on the small wooden chair. 

“Yeah.” Johnny nodded, “Just tired. This was true. He was pretty tired. It was already a little after 12 am, and he’d made a habit of falling asleep before 11 these last few weeks. Not to mention, the days events had taken all the energy he had left and then some. 

Jaehyun made an agreeable noise and stretched his arms out above his head, just like in the movies, “Yeah, its getting pretty late, I should probably leave pretty soon.” 

“I can take you home.” Johnny offered. 

Jaehyun and Ten looked at him. “How?” Ten asked mockingly, with a fake polite grin. 

“With…” Johnny trailed off. His car, was in fact, locked up behind a fence covered in barbed wire, not being fixed by anyone until this morning, “Oh. Right.” He groaned, dropping his face into his hands.    
Ten chuckled and nudged his shoulder, “You should go home and sleep,” He instructed. 

Johnny looked up at him from between his fingers, “What are you going to do?” He asked, a bit taken aback by Tens words. 

“I should probably head to the airport,” Ten responded with a shrug. He was smiling. Always smiling, why always with the smile? “May as well catch the last bus and sleep there, right?”

“I’ll come with you.” Johnny said. It wasn’t a question or an offer, it was a statement. He’d already decided he was going. 

Ten shook his head, “No, don’t bother--” 

“I want to come, Ten,” Johnny insisted. 

Ten looked at him for a beat too long, and then nodded, “Alright.” He said, agreeably. 

Jaehyun was looking between them with a face Johnny couldn’t identify, he cleared his throat, “Alright, well, I’m off.” He said, pushing himself out of his seat. He held 2 fingers up to his forehead in a salute, “See you guys tomorrow?” 

“Bye.” Ten called. 

Johnny didn’t say anything. Tomorrow. Jaehyun probably didn’t even realize what he’d said there. Jaehyun had said he’d see Ten tomorrow like he didn’t even--

“Okay. Seriously, what the fuck is with you?” Ten demanded suddenly. Johnny looked up and realized that Ten had been carefully watching him. 

“What?” Johnny asked. 

“This whole day you’ve been… weird.” Ten explained, evenly, sounding like he was choosing each word carefully, “Weirder than usual,” He looked weirdly embarrassed. 

Johnny shrugged and stared at his hands for a moment. He looked back up at Ten. He felt something stirring in him, rushing up from the base of his core to the top of his throat, but wasn’t even sure what it was until he opened his mouth and said, “Were you really just gonna leave?” The question surprised him, but not as much as it seemed to surprise Ten. 

“What do you mean?” Ten raised an eyebrow, he had not even a hint of humor on his face for the first time in what felt like hours. 

Johnny sighed. He was subconsciously picking at the label on the water bottle Jaehyun had left behind without realizing it. He wasn’t looking at Ten, “When I saw you under the bridge, was that really it? You were just going to… leave? Without another word?” 

Ten looked taken aback. His mouth fell open, and then closed again. He shook his head, “Johnny I--” 

“John.” Johnny corrected quietly. Not Johnny, never Johnny. 

“John.” Ten agreed. He looked like he wanted to finish his sentence, but didn’t. 

“Okay. I know that… You didn’t ... or… Whatever, but…” Johnny looked back up at Ten, ignoring the warmth behind his eyeballs that suggested the presence of tears, God why was he always fucking crying, New Johnny wasn’t supposed to cry, “You were really just going to leave, like nothing had happened at all? You were going to leave all these strings untied and questions unanswered and…” He trailed off, taking deep breaths. 

Ten was staring at the table, not moving. In that moment, something dawned on Johnny. 

“You’re just…” Johnny started to say. He found out now, in this moment, that it was in fact impossible to kill a version of yourself, as the old Johnny was now pounding against the bars of the jail cell in their shared brain, begging for him to not say any of this. Johnny paused, and took a deep breath, “You’re just some fucking...  kid who leaves when things get messy, right? You just… Get right up and leave anytime something happens that’s mildly inconvenient to you, right? You’re just scared, right?” 

He looked at Ten, who was still motionless, save for a couple tears that had slipped out from beneath his eyelashes and started rolling down his cheek, letting gravity do its work. In that moment, Johnny realized how true the words he was speaking were. Ten wasn’t a magical being, Ten wasn’t a criminal mastermind thief lord, Ten didn’t have magic powers, Ten definitely could not read Johnnys mind. Ten was… just a teenager, who has interests and thoughts, who couldn’t fix everything and who was... scared. Johnny opened his mouth to continue talking, but was cut off immediately. 

“What the fuck do you want from me?” Ten asked, quietly, his voice shaking. 

“W--” Johnny started to say. 

“Do you think about literally anything else except yourself, John?” Ten interrupted. He looked angrier than Johnny had ever seen him look before, “You have been nothing but.. Weird to me since we’ve met, do you not think about how I’ve felt?” 

“What are you talking about?” Johnny asked, he glanced around the store nervously, but the two other occupants didn’t seem to be able to care less. 

“Jesus, John, okay? You’ve…” Ten was nearly in hysterics now, he looked up at Johnny with eyes seemingly stuck in between a cry and a laugh, “You’ve never fucking treated me like a person, you act like I’m either the fucking anti christ, or some magical angel sent to help you on your fucking… path to enlightenment, or whatever the fuck. And I hate it! Did you ever once even stop to think about how I felt? Did you ever stop to think that I even had emotions?” 

Johnny opened his mouth to reply, but Ten held up a hand to silence him. He wasn’t done. 

“I fucking liked you, John, okay? I fucking liked you, but then I realized I didn’t like who I was when I was with you.” Ten took a deep shuddering breath, the kind that only comes after you’d been crying for a while, even though Ten was hardly crying now, “You make me… weird, you make me turn into the idea you have of me in your head, which isn’t who the fuck I am. And hey! You made your fucking self weird. Who the fuck is this guy? All of today you’ve been this guy, who’s so cool and casual and assertive and jealous and fucking looks to me for approval after every fucking dickhead move you make. Who is that, John? That’s not you,” 

“What do you mean?” Johnny asked, mind whirring as he tried to process this. Ten liked him? Why was that the thing he was picking out of all of this? 

“I mean…” Ten made a desperate noise, staring at Johnny with a look Johnny had never thought was possible to create out of Tens soft features, “That you had a million chances to learn anything about me today, like you promised you would, but you didn’t, because you were too busy being jealous of Jaehyun. And you… If I’m being honest here.. I don’t think you care enough to learn anything about me, because you already know everything about this imaginary version of myself you keep in your head. And thats the better version of me, anyways, so why bother?” 

Johnny froze. He didn’t know how to react. 

Luckily Ten reacted for him, and stood up in a quick fluid motion, elegant, despite his anger. He picked up the cup of abandoned Coke, watered down by the melted ice, and poured it right on top of Johnnys head, “You’ve never tried to be my friend. You’ve never tried to anything more than that either. So you don’t get to be jealous.” And with that, he turned, and walked out of the McDonalds, and onto the sidewalk. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dude idk .......... like ............. alright? listen....   
> this was one of those scenes u plan in ur head and is so poetic and impactufl and then u try and write it and its like "there is a tree" but ... whatever  
> im the king of inconsistant characterization but at least i can pretend its completely 100% intentional   
> lmk what u think! do u think tens overreacting, do u think johnnys a nincompoop, do u believe either of them, etc , etc ,


End file.
